PS 3535 
.015 P6 
1908 
Copy 1 






S OF 
ERSONALITY 



REGINALD C. ROBBINS 






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MAY 16 1908 

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COPYRIGHT 1904, 1905 AND 1908 BY REGINALD CHAUNCEY ROBBINS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CONTENTS 

PHARAOH ; 3 

MOSES 6 

GAUTAMA 12 

CHRIST 22 

PILATE 32 

JUDAS 37 

MARY 40 

MOHAMMED 45 

DANTE 50 

COLUMBUS 59 

SAVONAROLA 65 

MICHELANGELO 74 

MILTON 82 

LEIBNIZ 89 

KEATS 97 

SHELLEY 100 

iii 



CONTENTS 

HEGEL io8 

EMERSON 121 

WORDSWORTH 130 

THOREAU 134 

BROWNING 142 

MATTHEW ARNOLD 154 

GORDON 159 

MOHAMMED AHMED ; . . 162 

TENNYSON * 168 

WYCKOFF 175 

NANSEN 1S8 

DREYFUS 201 

TESLA 211 



IV 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 



PHARAOH 

Yea, now at last to let this people go ! 
Out from our cities and our fertile lands 
To drive them to the deserts and their death ! 
Truly a terrible revenge, to thrust 
Them forth to sure starvation at their prayer ! 
Yea, for I loved them as a Pharaoh may, 
This people prating of their Most High God, 
And pitied them and fain had cherish 'd them 
To build me temples, rear me granaries 
Even as in days of Ramses : him, the Great. 
Then came their sorceries of flies and frogs 
To torment Egypt. And I still forbore . 
And bound them to me as a Pharaoh may 
Firm for protection from the false purport 
Of Moses and of Aaron whom I loved not. 
Fain had I saved them, ay, and still forbore 
For love I bore them : being myself their God, 
Descendant of the Sun, Lord over all ! 

Ha ! do they dream, if that my father, Ra, 
Favors my favor'd in this fertile land, 
He will be other than a blistering flame 
3 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

To scourge them through the bitter wilderness ? 
Nay, shall He not bewilder those He blinds not 
With fever-fancies of some towering cloud 
By day, some phantom of His flame by night 
To lure them madly further to their doom 
Ever beneath His mightiness the more 
With each day's wandering southward, till the crags 
Of Sinai mock with laughter the last wail 
Of them who perish miserably, seeking 
A northern country and a shepherd clime ? 
A terrible revenge which I, the son 
Of Ra the mighty, wreak on Israel now ! 
I had forborne ; but when my first-born fell, 
My favorite child, to their foul sorceries 
Then did the wrath of Pharaoh sneer at last : 
* Unto their God now let this people go ! ' — 
And they are gone. As journeying birds at morning 
Settle upon the temples and through noon 
Bless all the priestly place with beauty, but 
By evening are flown wholly away ; 
And Amen's princely home glooms desolate : 
So are this folk from Goshen gone away — 
Themselves unto their doom : as birds in some 
Fierce tempest of the northern ocean fall 
4 



PHARAOH 

Broken and beaten back throughout our coasts. — 

Shall I permit that those my love hath rear'd 

And nurtured to be builders unto Ra 

Shall to the sorceries of one or two 

Fall sacrifice ? Or shall 1 save them still ? 

Shall the east sea rebuff the last of them 

Struggling toward Egypt ; that they die along 

His shores in hundreds, calling on my name ? 

Or shall the God in me regard them still 

My children, though my first-born be no more ? 

As they are men, are they not men like me ? 
As I am God, are they perchance not gods 
My children, godlike as mine own first-born ? 
Was my wrath man-like, god-like ? Was my grief 
Worthy of Pharaoh that I sought to slay 
My people by ten-thousands ? I will still 
Be Pharaoh, child of Ra, lord over all 
My people, equally with them divine ! — 

*' Call me my captains ! Hale my chariots forth 
" And bowmen ! I will bring this people back ! " 



MOSES 

This people ! Is it thus I led them forth 
From bondage to be free ? Yea, is it thus ? 
Doth Egypt, Egypt bind us, though these sands 
Of God's great desert be our lodging-place 
And fetters and their flesh-pots are no more ? 
Yea, is it thus ? That freedom needs a law ; 
And I, alone from out that multitude 
Of idol-worshipers who once were slaves 
Yet servants also of the Most High God, 
That 1 alone must meet God face to face 
In His high mountain to be messenger 
Of uttermost authority : and now 
Stand, fresh from God's strength, stricken of despaii 
Here statue-still upon this stark hillside ? 
Lo ! and the tablets of the absolute Law 
Destroy'd, dropt shatter'd from mine hand ; and all 
This speechless blue and death-strewn silent crag 
Echoing to the fragments, bit by bit. 
That burst and, bursting, hurl down unto dust ! 
Now shall I front this people and be dumb ? 
1 : who went forth at the command of God 
To learn God's purpose and proclaim it to them ? 
6 



MOSES 

Yea, shall I front them ? Or, once more, face God's 
Eternal patience ? . . . Are we fit for Him ? 

Fain would I feel : ' Because God chooseth us, 

* Are we, His people, holy and most fit 

* Unto the privilege He layeth on us ' ; 

Fain would be slave unto the Most High God : 
But shall be servant, wisely reasoning of Him 
And of His patience, His authority, 
And whether we be worthy. That I know 
Before this hour of my temptation pass 
I shall be faithful and confum'd to seek 
Anew Jehovah, saying to Him : ' Lord, 
Again give Thy commandments ' ; that I know me 
For still His servant, scarce releaseth me 
From need to prove and comprehend how God 
Can take for His, servants who need command ; 
Slaves who can yield no service save for task ! 
Is God task-master and no God of Love ? 
Then were He Pharaoh, and we further from Him 
By every journeying in the wilderness ; 
His pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day 
Some false god's ; ay, this exodus a lapse 
Unto idolatry ; as now I see it 
7 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Below me in the plain accursedly ! 
Then, yea, were it false that men might e'er be call'd 
A chosen people : for the chosen of God 
Were then His bond-slaves, strangers most from 
Him! 

Nay, God hath said : ' Ye are my chosen people '. 

And He hath led us forth from Pharaoh's power 

To be no longer bond-slaves. Wherefore God 

Is no task-master, but a God of Love ! 

Whence, then, this need of law unto our love ? 

Whence this relapse and infidelity ; 

My sacrilege, impatience ? How may we so 

Transform God to a seeming task-master 

If fit to be the chosen of a God 

Who hath no bond-slaves, nay ; but freeth us ? 

Lieth the fault not in us none the less 

While yet by wonder we are worthy still ? 

Pray'd not I once unto the Most High God — 
' Dismiss Thy servant, Lord ; for what am I 
' To bear the burden of Thy high command 
' To lay on Pharaoh ? Who am 1 to be 
* God unto Pharaoh as Thy word hath said ? 
' Wherefore, I pray Thee, Lord, dismiss me now 



MOSES 

* And give Thy word to one more fit for Thee ! * — 
Blaspheming. For Jehovah, for a sign, 
Wither'd mine hand within my bosom, turning 
The flesh more leprous than these sands ; but then 
Restored it whole as any flesh : to show 
By miracle how, though He knew, as none 
Of Israel might know, my leprousness. 
He yet would make of me an holy thing ; 
Laying a task on me, though God of Love ! 
Then when at last this people lay encamp'd 
By the Red Sea ; and Pharaoh's host drew nigh 
To threaten all with vengeance : that this folk 
Lost heart, blaspheming how the graves of God 
Were narrower than Egypt's ; did not He 
Stretch a great cloud along the coasts by night 
And part the waters with a wild east wind 
From off the shallow places of the sea 
To let His children pass unseen ; till God 
Open'd the eyes of Pharaoh but too late 
And caught him with returning of the sea 
Betwixt two waters, him and all his hosts ; 
And saved us : meaning by the miracle 
How though He knew our human helplessness 
Who fail'd to trust His help before the world, 
9 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

He yet would save us to be helpmate to Him ! 
Wherefore is God in us as we in Him : 
Eternal miracle of trust and worth : 
We worthy of the trust we wholly need. 

By miracle ? By nature ! As we are men, 

To fail from faith ; as we are God-in-us, 

To be His people, leading on and on 

A light unto the nations and a triumph 

In each endeavor ; as the way of God 

Is to be Father to His folk that fail ! 

For how else were He God ? How else were 

men? — 
Therefore need I in nothing now deny 
Our absolute unfitness to be God's 
Great chosen people : mine unfitness for 
This life-long privilege of speech with God. 
For in my sacrilege and mute despair 
At these idolatries, I feel how God 
Works wondrously unto the knowledge of God 
In me and wisdom of His ways with men. 
That freedom needs a law and is no love. 
Shall mean in God's good time a Law of Love 
Unto our helpfulness. Whence are we now 

lO 



MOSES 

God's nearest, fit unto the task we find ; 
And therefore chosen of the God of Love. — 
Wherefore, to God again ; and say : * Once more, 
* Lord, grant us Thy commands, which I destroy'd.' 



II 



GAUTAMA 

The night is solemn and the mind awake : 

Calm, yea, and almost wholly passionless. 

The myriad-glistering blackness of these boughs, 

Image of insight, calleth silently 

To contemplation whilst my limbs repose 

Beneath their canopy and rest with them — 

The myriad glistering of the glow-fly still 

Like thought that rests not though the body lies 

Along earth as the limbs of those who sleep, 

My comrades at my feet who learn of me. 

Though these friends sleep and are at peace as 

dead, 
I sleep not but must muse until the dawn. 
When time shall be that action be resumed : — 
Action, ay, nowise consonant with peace. — 

Nay, then, if life be passion and they be, 
The passions, wholly evil, how prevail 
(Being a living thing) to work aught good ? 
If all be false whereof we are aware 
(And only therefore meriting contempt — 
The things of sense and feelings form'd of them), 

12 



GAUTAMA 

How can the truth be anywise attain 'd 
Save in annihilation ? And to cease 
Wholly hath never been mine aim to teach. — 
How might a man conceive that he should cease, 
Save as by sleep whence even these blest awake ? 
And how conceive continuance without sense 
Of individual being still maintain'd ? 
There is no soul continuing through death 
Indeed ; yet Karma haply were some soul 
To those enlighten'd who perceive past births, 
And otherwise might hardly operate 
To yield identity to several forms. 
Yet is the broad assertion full believed 
(Oft have I taught it, falsely as I fear !) 
Of depravation and delusiveness 
Which wholly true would transcend remedy 
By contradicting any self-felt truth, 
Standard of good or cosmic objective. 
And my philosophy (as men construct 
My doctrine and require consistency 
Of system, I as seer have ne'er discern'd !) — 
My form'd philosophy were nothing save 
All thought be nothingness — although my thought 
Belies the asseveration ! To assert 
13 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Aught, should disprove my creed of nescience, 

Of peace by contemplation wholly void. 

Therefore am I two teachers ; and my word 

Some duplex half-truth ; and the world 1 leave 

Unto these faithful (followers of me 

Here sleeping at my feet through the soft night), 

A strife irreconcilable between 

Theory and practice as the night and day ! 

Lo ! if the night's denial of the day 

Be ultimate, then shall they never wake 

To dawning, nor might this my musing be 

A vigil of the truth — how can be practice 

Where theory denies ? The night still means 

The coming morn, as sense though wholly false 

Implieth an intelligence of sense 

Not void but individual as I ponder. 

I taught not truth — that so shall practice be 

Hollow pretense and theory be proved 

Itself sham and delusion : that my creed 

Be subtlest source of false establishment 

In faith, as likewise in vacuity 

Of conduct striving still toward emptiness. 

Shall I allow that day, my noble path, 

Shall be resumed unreconciled with aught 



GAUTAMA 

The serious night and vigil thus profound 
Have taught me of truth consonant with Self ? 

I can conceive a rule of faith not mine 
Yet still renunciative (still of night 
The peace-bringer in silence!), based in truth 
Of mutual compassion as mine own 
Though nowise seeking thus to annihilate 
As I all passion whence compassion comes. 
Lo ! for, behold ! if sympathy be good 
(If there be balm of night even in day), 
Itself the highest good in all the world 
(Strange contradiction of soul-turpitude !), 
Even as my doctrine teaches, then the world 
Is leaven'd by compassion whilst, without 
World, would the highest good whereof we know 
Be lost for substitution of the void : 
The vanity of sleep, in place of peace 
By comprehension as I wait the day. 
I cannot yield to nothingness a world 
Of whose fate I am still compassionate — 
Valuing compassion as best cause of peace ! 
I with a world to save must still redeem 
Myself by means of that virtue alone 
15 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of sympathy which hath been seed and source 
Of all my ministry ! I seem to feel 
A meaning wherein sympathy, not death, 
Not riddance of this individual life, 
Achieves salvation, universalizing 
By an identity of distinctive selves 
The lone-lost microcosm : how the day 
Of insight, ay, in action saveth man 
Day's creature ; not recourse unto the night 
Of moveless contemplation. Can the world 
Anywhere, anywise contain a man 
Who fearlessly shall face as 1 faced not 
The loss and pain, the single loneliness ; 
Alleviating all the sin of the world 
Not by abandoning the concrete good 
But suffering good in evil ? In some least 
By my renunciation have I thrust 
Evil upon myself and thus done good 
As by compassion ; and have thus deserved 
Haply not that absorption in the All 
My heart hath pray'd for, but some new re-birth 
Even in a clime and age where I may show 
Some practical divinity of man, 
Some steadfastness in insight sympathizing, 
i6 



GAUTAMA 

Yea, to the death : that I be born again ! 
Methinks I see me, not enthroned on high 
In endless musing aimlessly maintain'd 
For lack of any purport, but aloft 
In suffering rear'd upon a torture-throne ; 
And then anon beneath some charnel-hole 
Buried that I may rive and rise again 
Re-born within all men and be as God 
A savior and a spirit by sympathy 
Nobly maintain'd through sharing of all woes 
In self-appreciation : that all men 
(Not by annihilation of their woe 
With self; scarce by escape, but acclamation !) 
Shall feel their solidarity with God 
Even through my ministration. And at length 
Shall the apostles of that last god-birth 
Enlighten these my followers of this first : 
And be themselves enlighten'd by contact 
With rumor of this earlier mysticism. 
For they in turn through ages shall have lost 
The first fresh personal cognizance of God 
Within, believing only that I died 
(I the world-passionate of the later days) 
To save mankind ; not that men, each, are saved 
17 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

By personal compassion as was I. 
Whence in the contact of the alien creeds 
Shall haply spring regenerance of both : — 
Faith founded as my present faith is founded 
In individual potency to be 
(No matter how) all that we know of God ; 
Yet form'd no more in Nescience for a Way 
Nor in denial of God-personism : 
A faith form'd as my future faith shall be 
In passionate activity of self 
Instating and instated of the time 
And place for action, not (as in their faith 
Of ages after me) declaring truth 
To be of time and place not theirs but mine 
Only (forgetful that my life and theirs 
Are one in selfness and divinity). 
Haply a third — were it conclusive ? — birth 
In guise of him who not with parable 
But with convincing logic may construct 
The scheme of such a world of godly men ! 
(Ah ! but the beauty of a forthright proof 
To faith, yielding consistence, self-support 
And system to truth arbitrary else I) 
Haply a million births, each yielding truth 
i8 



GAUTAMA 

In some new words but never losing grasp 
(After the Two who spake in me half-truths — 
Two half-truths now ; two half-truths now and 

then — 
Have once been reconciled within the Third !) 
Of the divinity of sufferance, 
The world-salvation of compassioning, 
The nothingness of any life beyond 
A world, like this, of limit and of change ! — 
Ha I and, behold ! the glimmering of the dawn 
Responsive to the vision of that Day, 
The holy passion that possesses me. 
I will awake these sleepers and proclaim 
The new-won insight of the truth to-come ! — 

Nay, but, alas ! what if the limit be 
(Even as this night, ere birth of day, must die 
Despite their mutual interpreting) 
Also a final ; and my life (man-god. 
Yea, though I am) be now a final life 
Fill'd with its half-truth, and the nobler half 
Be never mine : be his, that later Man ? 
How might I then announce this failure to them ? 
Though self can cease not, neither be absorb'd 
19 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Unto Nirvana (an Nirvana be 
Annihilation!) yet perchance self were 
Complete, made total by the stint of deed 
Perform'd 'twixt birth and death (how, I know 

not; 
Lacking a logic for the fact I feel !) ? — 
Lo ! even then were my half-truth the whole 
Of some fulfillment. (Hath not even this night. 
That dieth ere the day, proclaim 'd to me 
Day's healing nighthood?) — In this world of pain 
The pain of being finally fulfill'd 
In self-acknowledged error ! That my name, 
Believed-on, shall breed nescience and a creed 
Of practical observance without rule 
Or check to superstition ; and, so far 
As truth is known of me, to be condemn'd 
As worst of the world's failures, who would save 
But could not : saved himself, but not the world ! — 
The night dies back, the day advanceth, dread 
And passionate, unwitting of the ways 
Of insight, cruel beyond sympathy ; 
And calling on me to maintain that creed 
Men comprehend of peace by nescience ! 
Did 1 declare the vision, I 'd achieve 
20 



GAUTAMA 

Truth to myself by sacrificing hope 

To save the world. Behold ! be the world saved 

Though in my heart I know my life hath fail'd ! — 

But, then, if life be evil, how not fail ? 



21 



CHRIST 

What were the purpose of a proud reply 

Unto these priests ? They know not what they do. 

Yet, whilst they still talk on, must I in soul 

Answer * before my father ', yea, for me 

Their witnessing : ay, is it false or no ? 

Now, while the tumult of their questioners 

Is fiercest, while the insult and the shame 

Shelter me with impenetrable hate 

As from the love of any man of men. 

May I, unwarp'd of too much passioning 

For pity of these people, weigh at last 

Worth of my ministry, ay, estimate 

Wherein this outcome I have long foreseen 

Were fair and fortunate, crowning with rich 

Accomplishment ; wherein 't were inwardly 

As openly a failure ! Let me be now 

Passionless as this cup is passionate ; 

Yet, as no Pharisee of all, a soul 

Alive with comprehension of the loves 

And hates of men ; their clingings to old truths 

Grown stale and false ; their yearnings still for new 

They scarce may understand : hence not for them 

22 



CHRIST 

Ripe truth : I among men a man, like these 
Not ripe to understand, cleaving to false 
Even for the need of men's companionship 
By ministry ; "y^^j for the teaching's sake 
Which fails from truth by every stale-meant word 
Half-wantonly meeting the times' demand. — 
Nay, Caiaphas, no compromise from now ; 
No failure more from truth by any word 
Meant to be understanded. 1 have found 
How men miscomprehend ; and still have told 
Nothing of my best message unto men. 
Now let my death atone ; for sins of men 
As my sin let this crucifixion come 
For my full meaning and companionship 
In ministry no man need understand 
To comprehend its purport to be true. 
But, lo ! (how safe this uproar shuts me in 
Out of the sight and sound of all whose ears 
And eyes would fain have open'd !) how did I 
For zeal and pity yield a leading where 
The light could scarcely enter. All seem'd truth 
Even as I spake it ; image seem'd the fact ; 
Figure, the message. For I loved men so. 
Now is the figure forsworn for the fact ; 
23 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Image, despoil'd of vision, witness'd forth 
In guise of ministry. Yea, is their speech 
False-witness? Father, or have I proved false? — 
Nay, not from nov^^ ! Only, let thought rehearse 
The history: what was; what should have been. 

So, Caiaphas, speak thou whilst silently 
I weigh thine accusations. Let them swear 
Their false truths: I will take upon my life 
Their falsehood, to attain unto their truth 
Of inmost self-belief even by my death ; 
Not otherwise. — So, they accuse me here 
Of sundry blasphemies. Have I blasphemed ? 
Scarce by intention. Yet I grant them truth 
Of plausible misinterpretations. I 
Spake but in parable, for want of words 
To meet their outworn ways of speech, yet speak 
The new truth utterly. 1 gave them stones 
For bread: the bread, how should they eat of it ? — 
So, 1 have 'stirr'd sedition ', counseling 
No reverence for priests' authority! 
What was my word ? ' Blind leaders of the blind ' ; 
* Wolves in sheep's clothing '. Did 1 mean or nay ? 
Father, 'mid this serenity of hate 

24 



CHRIST 

(Love-perspicacity of inwardness), 
Which shields me round (concludes within my will 
An infinite use) from any need to serve 
Too sympathizingly the blind and wolves, 
Find I the fact-interpretation : these 
Blind but by plenitude of light in me. 
Wolves but by my full innocence of harm ; 
I still by figure of the fact, by so 
Refusing self-responsibility 
Of imputation, equally with them 
Blind leader, wolf-destroyer of the fold : 
Such for the figure. Save the new truth come 
Despoiling old, remains old error truth; 
Save the old error stay to be gainsaid. 
How were the truth not-false? And I had meant: 
I find them blind and wolves who save for me 
Had been light-leaders, guardians of the fold : 
I thereby blind and wolf; they, through my truth 
Proved of their falsehood, equally with me 
Light-leaders, shepherds. By my parable 
1 nowise speaking utterly a truth ; 
I an authority sans self-belief : 
Thus have I sinn'd against authority. 
And men miscomprehended but the more. — 
25 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

So, I have ' mock'd the Sabbath-law ', who heal'd 
Sick on that day and ate with unwash'd hands 
'Mid sinners! Not against authority 
These deeds but rather against forms approved 
Of present practice; items half belief 
If still half sanction? Yet were sin the same: 
A failure to confess responsible 
For law's shortcomings me the source of such 
Subverting practice; else a failure to 
Admit law-conscienced deeds of mine worth faith 
Only by virtue of denying law. 
As of the blind authority I taught 
For teaching's sake as though authority 
Beyond mere man's opinion crush 'd theirs out — 
Meaning: my more wide-wrought opinion proved 
In virtue of my comprehension theirs 
Not self-sufificient, total ; so of law 
I spake as though some source beyond all men's 
Deliberate practice posited my deeds 
For lawful — meaning, as I now aver 
(Yea, Caiaphas, push swift to judgment lest 
My soul forestall thee !): sense of law in me, 
Values of ordinance for purpose 'proved 
Of conscience, show'd their formal sanctionings 
26 



CHRIST 

Trivial, comprehensible of mine 
Intent ; by virtue of my will, annull'd ; 
None less a lawfulness save law-deposed. 
Such were my sin 'gainst sanction ; I a law 
Without self-proclamation utterly. 
And men miscomprehended but the more. — 
So, I have ' taken upon me to forgive 
Sins ' ? And in so forgiving fail'd to show 
'T were but my holier bearing in my faith 
For new law beyond sanction which show'd sin 
(Otherwise righteousness concluding all. 
Which theretofore were righteous, for some sin) 
For sinful ; as the sinfulness alone 
(Like previous sin proving their deeds some right) 
Proved righteousness in my deeds : righteousness, 
The wonder, beauty, meaning but of life 
Conclusive utterly, self-organized. 
So world-constructive inly. And I spake 
As though some mercy over beyond men's 
Sense of a mutual frailty each for each 
Forewent the punishment — meaning : mine own 
Insight and sympathy of soul's estate 
In me as them saw each unto himself 
A scourge sufficient ; hence, a mercy-seat. 
27 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

So did I sin, forgiving ; I, a peace 
Without avow'd self-conquest. Can I now 
Assume by any grace beyond this sin's 
Self-torment to forgive my life at last ? 

Nay, 'tis my soul that fail' d in all these things 
Myself that spake and sinn'd. 1 at the last 
But learn the nature of each son of man, 
Myself as any : so to speak and sin 
Failing of self-responsibility ; 
By reason of the need of minist'ring, 
Of compromise with souls not mine (nay, mine 
By individual insight!) thereby falsely 
Imputing to some God beyond this world. 
Some world beyond this soul's, the sinless lore 
Of full accomplishment : but such would be 
Nothing accomplish'd. Lo ! it is my truth 
This falling short of truth ; even my death 
Were half-accomplishment, some falling-short 
Of perfect self-possession save I be 
Inevitably born for compromise 
Rightly fulfill'd, ay, comprehended well 
By sheer misunderstanding. Now I see 
No failure. Let me but seal up the sum 
28 



CHRIST 

Of perfect operation by one last 
Word, one last teaching, compromise of truth 
Supreme of self-divinity with their 
Stale fiction of a God of Abraham ! 
What were a God in whom no falling-short 
Betray'd truth's utmost self-sufficiency 
By error, self-proved, constantly annull'd ? 
Such self-annulment constituting sin 
Divine : for where were any act not God ? 
What were a world beyond soul's world which fills 
All birth and death with sacrifice, through strength 
Of service, mutual ministry, each least 
Person proved universal, absolute 
By world-inclusive insight, soul through soul : 
Absolving misinterpretation, yea. 
By rich love-needing : still gainsaying hate ? 
Let me annul this last uproar of hate 
To one death-sanction for the love I bear •■ 
All men. Let me avow to this sin-world 
Its sin's finality by being as sin 
Still self-redeeming ; nay, no mercy-seat 
Beyond : hence sin's forgiveness each through each. 
Let me uphold the law's authority 
By reason of our self -accountable 
29 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Ultimate judgment both of false and true. 
Let me declare God and my ministry- 
One ; scarce by dissipation of this strength 
To 'heaven's right-hand and wonder-throne ', though 

still 
In those sole terms their ears can understand 
Of physical kingship and some power afar. 
Let me affirm (if not that men may now 
Have insight, that some hour they apprehend) 
My manhood, conscienced personality 
By virtue of this self-responsible 
Accountability through every act 
For failure as accomplishment ; my spirit 
Divine. And there is nought beside divine 
Save world-belief, conscience-totality ! 

Hark ! For they now accuse me : ' Didst thou say: 
"* I, God are one " ? And art thou then the great 
' Messiah ? ' — Shall I give them of the bread 
Of life, faith of my faith : still in their phrase 
Of false-proved figure ? Shall I stand at last 
For understanding's sake so utterly 
Miscomprehended ? Ay, for such the full 
Accomplishment ; that all shall comprehend 
30 



CHRIST 

The absoluteness, so divinity 

Of failure ; the all-comprehensive truth 

Of self-sufficiency even to death ! 

Lo ! for the teaching's sake ! I, born to teach 

Death-mastery, the overcoming of 

The last infirmity : man's fear to fail ! 

Here in this final failure to speak truth 

('T is inmost holiness ; 't is ultimate use) 

Is mine accomplishment. — Jhe hush is vast. 

Man's whole life listens, waiting on the word 

Which saves the world : 

** Caiaphas ; thou hast said." 



31 



PILATE 

Now are they hot for Herod : they, that pack 

Of priestly wolves, of scribes and sects and dogs 

Of jealous dogma ! Would but Caesar send 

A rescript for their riddance ! Yea, some year 

Shall tens of thousands Jews hang crucified 

'Twixt heaven and earth, 1 warrant them. — Till then ! 

Now, what of Herod ? Will the flattery 

Befool him ? Will he exercise a right 

Of judgment o'er his subject in a seat 

Not his ; and give the Roman legions cause 

To rape Peraea ? Will he scent the trick, 

Send Jesus unjudged back to Pilate's door 

By Hebrew cunning ? Rather may he seek 

A mutual flattery in pronouncing this one 

Free Galilean ; in Jerusalem 

Not his to hold. For Herod is astute. 

Knows that I favor not their Sanhedrin 

Nor law-prerogative in priests and scribes ; 

But would for Caesar Caesar's. — How that phrase 

Of this philosopher fits well the tongue ! — 



32 



PILATE 

And what of him they carry with them there 
Cold, calm and stoic, him whose blood they seek 
For being perchance more Caesar's friend than they ? 
Now while they swarm at Herod's gate I '11 set 
(Should they by evil chance hurl howling back) 
My soul more steadfast to resist their lust 
Of blood by musing on his meanings here. . . . 

When I did question he did plain reply. . . . 
Even as I told them I shall still maintain : 
* The man is just. I find no fault in him '. — 

How can I then condemn him ? For the law 
Chastises not the proven innocent. 
Only — there are causes beyond the law 
Why Cesar's service might enjoin for now 
An acquiescence ? For they well might raise 
Tumult like that at C^sarea when 
1, being unprepared (as now !) to quell 
By force of arms, was forced to yield a point 
For Cesar's sake. It will not come to that. 
Yet but I wish I had my garrison 
Of Caesarea at Jerusalem ! — 
No more of this. 'T is Caesar's, best, to sway 
33 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The mob by absolute justice ; not by fear 
Of legionaries ; nor by mine own fear 
Of being impeach'd at Rome for failing please 
The Jews — a fool's chimera ! I have friends 
High-placed for my defense. And yet — 

I Ml still 
Deny priest-vengeance and protect the man. 
Ay, fain would I address me to his soul 
To learn of him. For is not wisdom wealth, 
Power and kingship to the citizen } 
How much more thus shall I over this folk 
Be governor, be Caesar's servant well 
By being disciple ; he my master. I 
Decree no punishment. 1 give to him 
His freedom so but he converse with me, 
Yield fair reply to questions fairly put 
In daily intercourse. I offer him 
No courtiership ; for he would spurn it of me. 
He is no parasite ; is too much man 
Of wealth, power, kingship even in himself 
To want a Roman's favor : he, the son. 
So credibly they tell me, of some god ? 
Haply. At all events a man who firmly 
And nobly said : * A king am I ' — still meaning 
34 



PILATE 

A wise man. For he added: * But my kingdom 

Is not of this world ' — meaning, as I know, 

Not kingdom like to Caesar's. 'T is such wisdom 

I would attain; for I am weary of 

A Csesar's favor and a people's wrath. 

'T is some fresh Attic teaching that he speaks 

And 1 would fain acquire ; fain to be king 

As he ; and rid of this time-serving strife 

Which fawns and flatters, yelps and snarls; and seeks 

No well-made manhood, true self — 

Hark! What sounds! 
So soon swung back! And in what hot-flung haste! 
What fangs and wolf-yells ! I 've but twenty spears ; 
The rest at C^sarea. Will my friends 
Stand firm at Rome ? Can any man be wise 
Needlessly to provoke a tumult, force 
Himself outdriven from Jerusalem 
To Caesar's wrath and uttermost disgrace 
Just for some stickling at the law ? 1 ne'er 
Let law prevent my vengeance ; shall not now 
Be hinder'd of my glut of blood for this. 
When the time serves. But now, 't is Csesar's best 
Service to yield a point so seeming-small. 
Injustice to one man. Scourging, perchance, 

35 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

May sate them ? At the worst 't is forced upon me. 
I '11 leave it to the popular voice to choose. 
Not mine the guilt. — 

And see ! What fool is this 
They mock at ? Certainly, a man who makes 
So fine a fool-king can be no fit source 
For Pontius' instruction ! 1 were fool 
To make weight of the matter. Let men bring 
A basin that, when things go ill with him, 
I Ml show them how 1 wash before all men 
My soul from business with this King of Fools! 



36 



JUDAS 

Judas ! — The name is hateful ; yet it clings ! 

Yon street-hag jeer'd at 'Judas ' ! — Such a priest 

Call'd 'Judas ? Judas? ' and I came and took 

The thirty pieces which he offer'd me ; 

And kept them with me, with me till but now ! 

The Master still said : * Judas, thou art he ' ! 

Judas ! It is the name of such as I ! 

It hurries desperate now, grim through noon's glare. 

Judas ! I thought to have flung the name beside, 
There with the thirty pieces now I flung 
Full in his face, the priest who call'd me by it! 
Yon street-hag I pass'd headlong, cursed I her 
For any cause save 'Judas ' ? — If perchance 
She knew not I did give the money up ? 
Call'd me the old name for the stale reproach ? 
Would speak some other could I tell even her 
The torment and repentance ? — 

None would speak 
A new name : not the bearer of no name ! 
Nor should I hear it: I can hear but one, 
Judas! Nought else so hateful in the world 
37 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

As cheek by jowl with me to cleave by me 
And be my leman-life to hound me on : 
Even as I kiss'd him with a leman's kiss. 
The hag shrank from me ; but the name abides. 
The world would let me go. Not so this Judas; 
Which will with me and hang with me this 

hour ! 
With me : a Namelessness just by this name ! 

Judas ! It was the Master called me by it. 

'T is so it sticks ! — Not that did such a hag 

Jeer ' Judas ' ! She were such an one to deem 

All creatures Judas. I but yield a name 

To all men and all women ; not myself 

The Judas solely. Nor that such a priest 

Call'd ' Judas ? ' ! When I flung the pieces back 

Was Judas quite a nobler sort of man 

Who does God service nor demands fair pay ; 

The imputation cancel'd of reproach ; 

And ' Judas ? ' flattery : a name not quite 

For any creature ; even I myself 

Not Judas wholly ! Ah ! Were these things 

so ! 
Then should I hang this day with half the hope 
38 



JUDAS 

Men might forget Judas had such a name. — 
Nay, but the Master : * Judas, it is thou ' ! — 

Judas ! It is my name and mine alone. 

Judas ! I thank thee, Master ; who speak'st truth. 

The right name : Judas, wholly and alone. 

Judas ! I thank thee, Master ; that 't is I 

Who hang this hour for being but such a name. 

There is no other. I fulfill the name 

Utterly ; take away from all men else 

And women possibility to be 

As Judas ; none less evidence the world 

Judas for pitiless perdition ; not 

World's flattery nor menace any more. 

The street-hag knew she need not fear to be 

As Judas ; Judas were her saving strength 

Who knew none other. Such a priest did know 

Blood-guilt were no God-service. Both are saved 

By my perdition through the Master's word ! 

Master, I thank thee. Judas ! 'T is my truth. 

Here is the bough where Judas for the world 

Hangs that he be true Judas : and none else ! 



39 



MARY 

Those distant moving twain upon the hills, 
Those will be John and James returning to me 
Even from afar and after many days. 
They had not faith to ' wait His coming ', here 
With Zebedee their father and with me ; 
Must needs go forth and among many men 
To preach His gospel. How could they expect 
Men to receive the truth they scarce have held : 
The faith of my Son's presence with all men ? 
'T was Peter's place ; 'twas all of truth he had, 
To be evangel : theirs to love and ' wait '. 
'T is the first failure. For my Son fail'd not. 
Yet used He home to me in those great days 
And 1 used forth to meet Him. Let me now 
Anticipate these prodigals who come 
(These distant waxing twain upon the hills) 
Even as my Son was wont to come to me. 
In those first days of calling of the Twelve, 
Along this footway. I will fare me forth 
To meet them. Would there were my Son with them ! • 

So soon the world forgets. Forget not I ! 
40 



MARY 

My soul is living with the light of words, 
Deeds, looks and breathings of the soul of Him 
My Son, and my Son only ! No pains else 
Did bear Him to the birth that shall not die. 
Yet, those Hosannahs. Yet, that feast of palms 
And people hailing Him, my Son, my Son ! 
Where are those many faithful ? Are they then 
Crucified as my Son, as my soul too ; 
And may not rise again as He, my Son, 
Hath risen and my very soul with Him ? 
Were they so fond and are they now so faint ? 
How sad must be their weakening. 'T is for them 
The fond yet faithless that my whole heart grieves: 
Even for James and John amongst the rest ; 
Who needs must seek complete a work, so whole 
Already with His mission ; needs must forth 
To supplement His teaching : and have fail'd 
Convert a world which was already His 
In His good time ; yea, now arid always now. 
See they not : it is still the selfsame earth 
Of Him, my Son, in which His words and deeds, 
His looks and breathings sanctified things all, 
Yea, resurrected God's sweet countryside 
To an undying wonder ? Nay, the world 
41 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of speechless things and folk without a soul 
Forgets not. Can men's souls alone forget ? 
Alone forget, alone who need to know ? 
These are the pastures and the little hills 
Of olive ; this, the way wherein I walk, 
Was trod by Him ; and yonder is the blue 
Whereon He stood appearing unto them. 
It is His earth and His unendingly ; 
Mine earth by faith in Him, by ' waiting for * 
Fulfillment presently, yea, present now 
Without completion more. Can aught forget ? 
Yet but have James and John forgot and fail'd; 
Now home are coming, ay, to tell me of it 
For comfort's sake. And I will comfort them, 
Tell them anew the story for their faith. — 

Yea, here are John and James, who from afar 
And after many days return to me 
Even by this footway, whom I wandering forth 
A little further than my daily wont 
Now greet in coming, as they crown this hill 
Sudden appearing. I have yearn 'd for them 
In absence. And their nearness seems a new 
Rebuke and chastening. In their mien I see 
42 



MARY 

No sadness for the world of humankind 
Their brethren, brethren also of my Son. 
No sadness for themselves ; no failure, no : 
But a great light. The spirit of my Son 
Transfiguring their faces to mine eyes 
Is with them twain. And all their poise is high ; 
And as they come they talk on mighty things 
And bring a whole world with them. — Shame, that I 
Had deem'd myself worthy to hold alone 
(Deeming these John and James and all men faithless) 
The sacred intercession unto men ; 
Had deem'd the work complete, though I in mine 
Undue assumption dream 'd that I alone 
Knew this His second coming evermore ! 
I ? What have I, who weakly tread this way 
Within this circuit of these little hills, 
To know of God's good mercy, through my Son 
And these, unto all multitudes beside 
Who only need to hear, so to be saved ? 
Nay, but who needs must hear ; else are not saved ! 
Yea, I have sinn'd, been faithless. Can I bear 
Their holy greeting ? Will mine ears receive : 
Mine ears that did so very near forget 
The meaning of His sacrifice for men ? 

43 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Was I His mother, who forswore His world, 
Denied within my soul men's faith in Him ? — 
Hark to their greeting ; 't is as my Son's voice : 

' We hail thee : Mother ! — For no man forgets ! 
* The people all receive Him with the Word ! ' 



44 



MOHAMMED 

And I arise and face the flowing east 

As in the days of youth, before the Creed. — 

Here have 1 sate amongst these tombs of stone 

Beside Medina in the desert stark 

This night-long. Till the dawn at last hath sprung ; 

And, with the dawn, God's speech vouchsafed anew 

Unto the worn and feeble ; as of yore 

In days of strength to me on Meccan hills : — 

Now in the name of God, compassionate 

And merciful, who speaketh by my mouth ! 

For I have said : ' Cometh a day when no 
' Soul can avail aught for another soul ; 
' For the ordering on that day is with God. 
* Yea, and the soul shall know what it hath wrought '. 

Thus have I said : ' The soul shall surely know '. 

Thus have I said, knowing the soul shall know ; 

Knowing that God's the ordering on that day : 

And therefore certain of the ways of God ; 

1 intimately cognizant of God 

As of my being and my very soul. 

Wherefore a new interpretation springs 

Of this my ministry : even as the sun 
45 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Startles to flame yon angels of the gale, 
The storm-sands swirling just above his bed, 
As he, the lord of heaven, awakes, starts forth 
And burns the world to wisdom ; so my soul 
Sees but itself in all that it hath wrought 
And makes a day of judgment of its own ! 
Lo ! if I intimately speak for God 
The truths that yet spring wholly in myself 
By my conviction and imagining ; 
Then are not God and I even in these truths 
One, as the truths are now intrinsic to me ; 
My judgment and my prophecy, the same ? 

Is it a dream, this hour that 1 have taught 
Of future resurrection, even that day 
To-come of judgment ; is it then a dream ? 
Is this high-streaming sun, that bursts across 
These shimmering-silent death -stones, God's sole 

sun ; 
And all these hosts of waiting dead, asleep 
From now forever ; and no waking more ? 
For if my lord and judge be with me one 
And this my prophecy be judgment too — 
As now I feel it in the certainty 
46 



MOHAMMED 

That souls shall know; I therefore knowing the 

soul ! — 
What space be for the plain tautology 
Of God beyond man ; who am in myself 
God in so far as God hath power at all ; 
Who am mine estimator and my judge 
Now whilst the common dawn leaps forth to-day ? 
If I have fix'd a faith for every man 
Even unto all-time, am not I at fault 
To fix for future what were novel-sprung 
To each anew, and only thereby fix'd, 
Man's birthright : judgment, conscience of himself ? 
Shall not each man who leaps as I have leap'd 
With sunsurge to divine identity 
(Upright nor prostrate-cringing any more !) 
Condemn the pitiful hypocrisy. 
The hitherto shamefacedness that led me, 
Feeling the fire within yet to deny 
And say : ' God shall be ' ; meaning ' God is now '? 
Yea, and if God be Now, how might I fix 
A faith to all men who must equally 
Each in his time be God's ripe judgment-day 
With estimate anew to suit each time 
As perfect as is now to-day my faith ? 
47 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

All was illusion ; both that hour to-come, 

And power to fix faith to a future age ! 

Lo ! in my newly-found divinity 

I judge ; and judging must condemn the creed 

That call'd me here, that laid these dead about me 

Waiting beyond Medina for the word 

Of God, in desertness enduringly ! 

The word of God ! 'T were then idolatrousness 
To wait the speech of the oracle, when now 
The living God is speaking as I speak. 
One God or many, if beyond the heart 
Of any man, were utmost blasphemy 
Alike, unworthy of mine absolute soul. — 
And yet, the comprehension of the crowd ! 
Lo ! had I said : * The very God behold ye ! ' 
Then had they worship'd me : and been betray'd ! 
Yea, had I cried : ' Earth's judgment is fulfill'd 
' Even in the judgment-reasoning of each ! ' 
Then had they stolen and slaughter'd, ay, straight- 
way 
With obvious impunity ; and sinn'd ! 
Yea, for the folk that feel not Godhood in them, 
No all-responsible insight of earth 
48 



MOHAMMED 

(And how there be such godless, yea, 1 know not ; 

Though till this instant was I one of them 

Wholly ; as now in ignorance confess'd !), 

Were judgment yet to-come and God afar ; 

His speech unheard save still reported to them 

Through ail their days. And therefore must there be 

Slaughter and rapine in the name of God 

To fix faith, as I find it, unto all 

Who feel not God. And therefore were it meet 

That these within their graves should wait till God 

Alive in future peoples plough their bones 

Into some sudden garden where was waste : 

And end earth's desolation. Though myself 

Have had some resurrection : and am saved ! 

So I incline and pray toward Meccan fanes. 



49 



DANTE 

I, Dante, have depicted all these things 
In imitation of mine heaven and hell 
Within ; 1, Dante, drew them as I saw them 
To duplicate the passion of my soul : 
Like some basilica of Christ on earth. 
And like some lordly-hewn basilica 
Covering earth where only naked earth 
Alone before had been ; so have I given 
Spiritual power of philosophy 
Where had been brutish feud and vacant brawl. 
All things now known beneath the heavens, beneath 
Earth or beyond the empyrean, all 
Have furnish 'd forth mine imagery, themselves 
Acquiring passion as I spake of it. 
And all have been a picture of my soul. — 
This Beatrice, would her own soul know 
Herself so marvelous matured with truths 
Till now not said of woman ? Would the child, 
The little maid I knew, the bride-elect. 
And lastly the frail matron recognize 
The mouthpiece of Madonna and of Christ ? 
This Beatrice, should 1 look to take 
50 



DANTE 

Her salutation passing in the street 
As formerly, or should I see some wench 
Unlike the lady of that crystalline ? 
Shall not mankind to-come, seeing my soul 
So strong, so tragic-passionate through this 
The symbolism, come to ask at last : 
' Was Beatrice woman of the flesh 
* At all ? Was Dante this world's citizen ? ' 
How subtler than subtlest theology 
This doubt and question I In my soul to-day 
An introversion of the accustom'd orb ! 
My life hath been iron reality 
As spear, axe, hauberk and those towers of strength 
Men rear'd in their Firenze out of stone; 
Stone, yea, and iron hath been my pilgrimage 
Through years of exile ; and my tragedy 
Hath only been so flame-hot passionate 
With bitterness and stern relentless wrath 
At evil Italy, that earth hath fused. 
Grown plastic to the furnace of my spirit 
And — blown all into smoke ! Where is seen smoke 
There towers are fallen ; where my soul hath breathed 
Lie ruin'd very real realities. 
Where Beatrice beams beatified 
51 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Was every hour a maiden passing by. — 

But, shall conviction of a literal sense 

Keep true the symbol ; or shall men mistake 

Earth all and hours of iron virileness, 

Human heart's-love and worship, for the words 

Of otherworldliness and wanton dreams ? 

Shall the basilica seem faith alone ? — 

Were not the world right yet in wrongly taking 
The symbolism of my work and song? 
Hath not my method served its own defeat 
By treachery within the very walls ? 
Hath not my soul been exiled by my verse ? 
For 1 've but duplicated this my soul, 
Have built about my passion a tower on earth 
Not meant for earth to stand and fall on it, 
But for translation to the terms of God ; 
Have pictured, ay, described though scarce express'd 
The power of him who dwelling upon earth 
Not imitates but vitalizes faith 
By acts accomplish 'd. Hath not mine own creed 
Dissever'd church and state, awarding earth 
To emperor, soul to the man of Christ, 
But reconciling neither ? And if I 
52 



DANTE 

Portray by paradox the power of Christ 
Through giving over His basilicas 
To anti-Christ, shall anti-Christ be saved 
By calling them still temples ? An there be 
The mystic sense to all that I have sung, 
Yet are the words the words of sensuous things ; 
And, on the assumption of unsensuous soul, 
Must merit men's discrediting as writ. 
The symbolism must defeat itself. 
The vivid emphasis on things of earth 
* Not merely cited for theodicy 
Discredits soul itself ; unless the terms 
Taken of earth shall stultify themselves. 
1, Dante, have denied my birthright, making 
Life but a replica of visioning : 
Heaven and hell erected, excavated 
Above, beneath no firmament of man ; 
Nor purgatory recognized for earth. 
I, Dante, of a stone and iron age. 
Who knew but man and woman; hated, loved 
But man and woman and this marvelous earth ; 
Have only dream'd and told men of my dream; 
I, Dante, have discredited my world, 
Have lived at soul mine exile in my verse 
53 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

And left my life's reality a doubt. — 

I am the last of them that shall mistake 

A portrait of a dream for world's real truth. 

I am the last, who, missing upon earth 

The realm of Christ, yet strongly feeling earth 

Its powers and passions, hating, loving it 

And moved to mighty speech, must spoil that speech 

With architecture of a spire, a pit, 

(Beyond the all-purgation of this life) 

Exhausting all of knowledge, yet unknown. 

I am a limitation unto men ; 

If in my strength of style impassable, 

Yet also in the weakness of my way 

Of giving earth expression. For no mode 

Were less convincing of reality. 

Were more the manner of a mind at dream 

(Dispatriated by mere shift of the scene 

From speech to verse though both are native tongue ) 

Than this of emblem and this ordering 

Of each event unto its symbolism. 

No man shall make a poetry less real. 

So have I fail'd by sheer excess of strength, 

Pursuing to disruption world and soul ; 

And am but creature of my passing age : 

54 



DANTE 

I, Dante, lost in thought's duality 

And rendering unto God no genuine things 

Of God : by thus discrediting things all. — 

Yet am I greater than mine age in this : 
That I would at the worst establish earth 
Of power imperial (to Caesar things 
Worthy at least of Cssar) and lead the way 
By genuine emphasis of vital facts 
To disregard of otherworldly lore, 
Of symbolism and false-parallel. 
Speaking the plain expression as I see 
And feel and move about and am of earth : 
The true Italian tongue though Italy 
Be there Firenze, here another state ! — 
Exhaust the symbolism, disregard 
The shadowy-doubtful necromantic myth 
I wove of Faith and Reason ; and take of me 
Fair purport, as I wrote experienced truth. 
Thus were the tale no duplicate of soul, 
But soul in some degree thirst-satisfied 
By utterance of the matters of its wrath 
As these affect its fact and are its life. 
Firenze, ah ! Firenze ! how 1 love thee 
55 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Who am an exile hated of thy race ! 
Ravenna, how I hate thee though thou holdest 
Body of mine and, with that flesh, my soul ! 
These are the tragedies whereof I walk'd 
Incarnate poetry, by some mistake 
Mask'd in an oracle and mystery : 
These were my soul-purgation without end ! 
Ah, Beatrice, thou I mostly loved 
While mated to another and thou dead ! 
Thou woman : thou a dream, but that this soul 
And body saw thee still and yearn'd at thee 
Though knowing thou wast not ! These are the things 
I truly spake and felt and fully meant : 
Unwilling exile in that spirit-world 
Which 1 alone best knew for truth of earth. 
The first of some new race of men am I 
Who, Greek-like, Roman-wise, dwell all on earth 
And live with it and love it and beget 
By earth high poem-progeny — not like 
Barren scholastics cloister'd in their lore. 
The first of some new race who, Greek-like still, 
Yet burst beyond the Greek in that their soul 
Cleaves to no atom-struggling 'gainst the fates, 
No refuge in atom-indifference, 

56 



DANTE 

But continence with passion-power combined 
In this sublime sense of concluding earth 
(Of rendering unto God God's things call'd Csesar's) 
Learn'd of the symbolism. Where heaven and hell 
Have been or seem'd to be can nevermore 
Be passive agony, but masterful 
Appropriation of all literal truths 
To re-create : for soul is master now. 
If litLle save the chronicle of crime 
Of Italy accursed 1 have spoken ; 
Else the death-phantom of a finite love ; 
Yet is the chronicle a novel art 
Prophetic of a poetry wherein 
That high philosophy call'd Reasoning Faith 
Shall sing incorporate with facts of earth 
Not parallel'd, not paradoxical, 
But literally universalized 
Unto world-permeant intelligence 
By insight of soul's self-eternity 
'Twixt birth and death. I, Dante, born of earth 
Yet wandering in the fiended forest of things 
Call'd past ; else through some void futurity 
Of seraph-crystalline, stand born at last 
Anew. Hell sinks ; heaven lifts. (Italian tongue 
57 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Preserveth me from exile in the verse 
Else native to no earth !) I humanly 
Wake in Ravenna unto world's worth now. - 
I, Dante, have discern'd a world's purgation. 
I, Dante, have made self -con tain 'd an earth. 



58 



COLUMBUS 

From the accomplish'd triumph here am I! — 

I have no triumph to report, my queen ; 

No mere achievement; yet a truth so strange 

That Indies sink to insignificance — 

Though the significance were Indies' still! 

I have come through some tempests of the soul 

More vast than ocean-thunders ; and have seen 

In storm-burst vision of vitality 

New-born to earth but by the wreck of all 

Which hitherto hath held us: you, my queen, 

God and our Empire all within that wrack 

Concluded, victims of the visioning. 

Now have I come to register my truth. 

Hearken me, pr'ythee, for I stand here now 

With some authority for service done — 

Even though 't were service Spain may scarce survive! 

You who are under God in special place 
Of privileged communion, need not know 
The fear of failure ; for your thoughts are straight 
From God. I have no privilege ; did need 
59 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Success to live : and I have found success, 
Am proved before myself and you and God 
Sane and assured some insight into things. 
I am not close to God ; but I can say 
With humblest dignity I may love close 
My sovereign as God : 1 of my part 
Sovereign, who lay new Indies at your feet. 
Though are there moods when I would still undo 
The great discovery, and be as one 
Not near his sovereign nor himself a king. 
Hark ! for 1 fear a failure, as 1 fear'd 
No failure from the winds nor waves nor spheres 
Of meteor-influence. And 't is yours, my queen, 
This doom ; not as you may be under God 
My sovereign; nor yet as I, being man 
Yet sovereign in myself, so make you God 
To this my being; but as in yourself 
You are as I no sovereign; under God 
A subject, so in fear of failure too, 
Needing success to live. — Nay, hearken me ! 
The seas have heard me, and I speak their voice ! - 
Here are these Indies newly at your feet 
Laid for the glory of your faith and mine. 
They shall be vast and great; and on their wealth 
6o 



COLUMBUS 

Spain's resource be upbuilded many years. 
Yet have I breathed their breath ; and feel their life 
A new thing and a menace to old faith. 
There, God is otherwise than is our God ; 
There (by the new insight which 1 have gain'd 
Of world and system — though I want the speech 
Of some ensuing age to give these truths 
Words and right meaning, and must founder so 
By paradox!) there must a sovereign 
Be otherwise than is my sovereign ; 
Myself be otherwise than here I stand : 
More worldship be to God where worlds are fresh 
And full of untold interests and faiths 
Which mean no mere unvital imagery 
Of truth, imply no otherworldliness, 
But are some Godship in their life's estate, 
More worldship ; though less frail humanity ! 
More humanhood be to the sovereign. 
More sovereignty to the meanest churl 
(And only so some Godhood to them both). 
Where opportunity to be one's law, 
One's church and state and justice all in one 
Springs of the forest and the novelty 
Which shakes establish 'd custom, buffets forms 
6i 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of prejudged failure else ordain'd success 
(Of old-world slavishness) with salt-sea foam. 
(Had I the speech of some ensuing age!) — 

Nay, 't were no treason. Yet myself have been 
Convicted of a grievous blasphemy 
Who sought a new Spain under God who gives 
No new for old save with the death of old. 
Yea, it is new, but it shall not be Spain, 
Its sovereign no queen of old Castile 
More than its God is God Granada-wise ! 
I am an old man, yea ; but I have seen. 
Am made anew ; and feel a sovereign-like 
God-comprehension in my veins that mocks 
(Save a new faith and hence a new respect 
Self-lawfully be overt to new speech) 
The old unreasoning obedience 
(As ocean-tempests mock obedience) 
To faith-prerogative. — You tremble, queen ! 
Strike if you will ! Perchance I may return 
From yon west hemisphere one day in chains 
To expiate what 1 but now have said ? — 
Nay, but I fear not. For, as under God 
Are you my sovereign even in this place 
62 



COLUMBUS 

So Spain is under both ; but not New Spain : 

More than am I no sovereign of myself 

In those far Indies whither I once more 

Depart (by leave) to learn new God, new faith, 

And a new nation builded in the death 

Of this ; of you, my sovereign ; of your God ! 

And with the old I fall and die away 

Doubtless ; but must project my soul upon 

All destinies as you shall never do. 

Here may the monks a thousand years to come 

Wail masses for your soul ; there shall a growth 

Of unborn peoples daily at their heart 

Learn me, my meaning in the speech my speech 

Would mean. — Our wealth shall flourish and be great 

By reason of these Indies for a space. 

But now the faith, the Empire, falls away 

Even into nothingness ; and we with it. 

Yet have I seen and sought to tell to you 

The insight you may ask in turn your God : 

Ask God Who told me but gave scarce the speech 

Of some ensuing age that you might share 

The vision : none less true, filling my soul 

With meaning. — 

I of the doom'd ship have stood 
63 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

All darkling : suddenly when the whole night 
Opens ; and there is cloud-wrack and the wrath 
Of myriad stricken waves ; and then the black 
Is verberant through all the blinded void ! 



64 



SAVONAROLA 

FiRENZE I have served my seven years 

And now am come to suffer for her sake 

As men have died before me : martyrs, saints — 

And now myself, mere Prior among priests, 

Girolamo. Yea, 't is strange that I have come 

Unto such noble company. But God 

Was ever gracious, ever spake to me. 

When was He otherwise to any man 
If men but would take heed ? My only claim 
To merit in the sight of God or man 
Were heeding then the message. Did I heed it ? 
The query were not of my meed as man 
Merely ; of that I were indifferent ; 
Could take no heed for saving my mere soul. 
Nor now, when face to face with death, accede 
To private casuistry, were my worth 
Alone involved in my life's estimate. 
But I have been that leader of the blind, 
God's humble vicar with the souls of men 
At stake on mine. For I have had my day 
Of power in plenitude in name of Christ, 
65 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of vicarage to wide effect on earth, 

Though fallen so low to-day in earth's own sight. 

God's wisdom be the fall ; let it not shame 

The power that hath been — but because the sign 

1 hoped from heaven hath come not nor shall come ! 

Let the apostleship stand firm and fall not 

With this mere faltering of the flesh of me 

Before the drawn cord and the searching flame. 

I will examine by full confessional 

Mine own career now closed ; and let it stand 

Fair yet or foul for men to know me by. 

There hath been other record, false I know, 

Inscribed and publish'd of the inquisitors. 

Let this my silent searching of myself 

By God's grace permeate the minds of men 

Mysteriously to let them learn the truth 

Of mine example set — as I shall learn it. 

All sums itself in one : that I denied 
Power of any potency of earth 
(Putting my trust in God, not Prankish princes !) 
To gainsay God ; making my faith the test 
Of God or anti-God in earth's affairs. 
May be, 't were that 1 ought not even conceive 
66 



SAVONAROLA 

Of anti-God establish 'd in the earth : 
So be it. But there be those who under God 
Assume the power of God to plunder men. 
And such should be resisted would we serve 
God wholly and directly as we may. 
Nor, for I now confess it, spake I well 
When claiming prophecy, the gift in me 
By vision of the things unseen of men 
To speak for God as other than mere man : 
Foretelling future things by oracle 
As pagans use. For such a prophesying. 
Such speaking for our Lord, were beyond speech 
Presumption on my part and on God's part 
A supererogation. Speaks He not 
Through every tongue of earth if men would heed .'' 
So it is true that to this least extent 
I solemnly recant : I spake as one 
Men call inspired indeed, but not in kind 
A prophet different from other men 
In all of whom faith like to mine might fill 
The void with some afflatus. Reasoning fair 
With knowledge of the times, with faith in right 
Conclusive in me of the truth of things, 
I could forefeel and did foretell indeed 
67 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Much chastisement and mine own doom at last 
As now is come upon me — Gladius 
Domini super terram. The worst wretch 
If suddenly possess'd by gift of God 
With faith in right might prophesy as well. 
That were the only gift, the faith in right. 
And only so have I been prophet here. 
So be it. I man to man resisted firm 
The oppression of the powers that claim 'd from God 
Power superior to my people's power 
Whereof from God 1 was the guardian. 
The pettier tyranny, Lorenzo's rule. 
Foul Piero's pretense, I spurn'd to oppose 
Directly nor countervail by counterplot. 
Save as I served Firenze by my voice 
And persevered for peace if honorable ; 
But being irreconcilable to death 
I but did well : the Medici deserved not. 
But now hath been the Borgia, he who claims 
The Keys of Peter. Did I well with him } 
He conquers this my flesh : by flesh I fight not — 
'T is spirit that is protagonist. Yea, shall 
He conquer then my soul who no soul hath } 
1 stake upon the proof of simony 
68 



SAVONAROLA 

Mine absolute refusal to allow 

Pope Alexander to be proven Pope. 

Say not the scholiasts all, that place obtain'd 

By fraud endoweth with no authority ? 

Between this Alexander and myself 

There is no worthy combat. He is nought. 

He burns my body ; but him my soul ignores. 

What then the doubt, if there hath been no Pope 
With whom dispute might lie ? As man to man 
He was beneath contempt, should fill not now 
One moment of the life remaining to me 
Which should be wholly dedicate to God. 
But there is world without these prison-walls, 
Firenze still, though hostile, at my feet. 
Example set by me unto all people. 
And misconception of the speech of me 
And false report ! And 't is to serve God still 
If I bewray mine hours yet left of earth 
To silence question, free from my career 
If possible without recant from truth 
The imputation of revolt imbued 
Schismatic, scandalous within God's church. 
'T were shame of this that made me oft-time yield 
69 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Where right was mine against authority 
(As world would misconceive !), where I by yielding 
Endanger'd self, weaken'd my flock's support. 
And it is now this rumor of schismatism 
Moving and waxing when I am no more — 
'T were this I truly fear, deeply regret 
In mine attempt now closed to purge God's church 
Of rottenness. The rottenness alone 
Might never cleave asunder what God meant 
For one Church universal. Had I lived 
Longer, to urge the Council and conduct 
Myself the Cause of Christ against those crimes 
Call'd Cardinals and Popes, then had there been 
No danger of a schism from that I wrought. 
Their creed is my creed, could they but repent. — 
But now 't is otherwise. The time was short ; 
And I have left the purging unperform'd 
And reconciliation unattain'd. 
It were to any outward view a war 
'Twixt me and Rome, this Prior and the church : 
A fatal heresy ! — I seem to see 
In some outlying land where Emperor 
Is ever jealous of the pride of Rome, 
Where fervor of the rich, symbolic creed 
70 



SAVONAROLA 

Is chill'd by frost of some hard northern clime, 
(Ages from now may be, yet child of this age !) 
A stout schismatic rise and cry : ' From him, 

* Girolamo of Ferrara, him who bade 

* The Pope go burn in hell his thousand years, 

* From him, this martyr'd Prior of San Marco, 

* Came the first blow of the mallet on the wedge 

* Which now I wield to thrust the structure down 

* Divided from itself. Savonarola 

* Who first put inward grace 'fore outward chrism, 

* The first schismatic, first protesting priest : 
' To him be honor and glory for his crime ! ' 

So shouts the Teuton. And the accursed crime. 
The desperate revolt from God's true church. 
Spreads frenzied down the ages ; and the world 
Is rift in twain ; and God is no more known 
In mystic union of His Church on earth 
The one and universal. There shall be 
Rivers of fire and burnings, yea, of blood ; 
Wars, devastations ; and my name be claim'd 
For anti-Christ's great patron by my fault 
Of struggling now against this Borgia ! — 
Lord, if this vision be vouchsafed by Thee, 
Forgive the error of my fight for Thee ! 
71 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Accept the penitence for crime unguess'd 

But in Thine own inscrutable wisdom proven 

Mine irremediable shame and sin ! — 

No vision need it be, then, Lord ! if Thou 

Still to the last vouchsafest me no sign ? 

Only mine insight into mine own deed 

Its necessary consequence of shame 

Despite my soul's intention — insight aided 

By rack'd nerve, twisted sinew : my sight at last 

As now longtime of many ! Here I kneel 

Foregone, bewray'd indeed : my contumacy 

Proven 'gainst the unity of men's belief 

In Thy Church universal ! To have set 

Mere private judgment, personal unity 

Of reasoning faith above Thy best bequest, 

Thine instituted Body ! Of Thy Spirit 

The mind knows nothing, save by outward works 

As Thou, Thy Church, ordainest ! 'T is thus we 

heed 
By heeding them who hearken'd long ago 
When Thou wast upon earth — authority 
Closing the question of power ! — Whom men call 
Pope, against him can be no just recourse ? 
Lo ! I have hitherto aloud denied 
72 



SAVONAROLA 

The excommunication. Before men 
Have I been cogent in my reasoning 
Contra authority ; whilst nought obtains 
Of logic nor of reason to avail 
Against the scandal I have caused thereby. 
Even this self-searching, ay, were scandalous, 
Unwarranted and proving nought of truth, 
Knelt I not thus in Thy confessional ! 

Lo ! when the time for absolution comes 

In the last hour before the people there, 

That absolution 1 will meekly take 

Publicly to my spirit, that the church 

(Perhaps therethrough my teaching may be true?) 

Shall triumph through me though my teaching fail. 

I must not perish excommunicate ! 



73 



MICHELANGELO 

These are my children : these, the Night and Day. 
For 1 have wrought them with my body's power — 
Persons more of my procreation than 
Stuff of an artistry of thought and soul. — 
'T were not that slowly and with patient pain 
Under mine hand I made them hour by hour, 
These creatures moulded of the graven rock. 
The slow gradation toward maturity 
Were in thus much no thwarting to mine art 
But rather proof of reason in the whole, 
Of sight before and after. But being made, 
Grown to the semblance of heroic truths 
And left (as I have left them these few years 
Unchanged) well-nigh eternal where they lie. 
They still are stone, an occupance of place 
In reproduction of my form humane 
As I am body moulded to my height 
And breadth within this frame of universe. 
And therefore are they creatures of my body, 
Children in likeness of my fatherhood, 
Unlike the sexless self-completed soul 
That, needing nothing to perpetuate 
74 



MICHELANGELO 

Its self-eternity, of largess makes 
World of itself, createth as a God. 
Somewhat there was within me as I wrought 
That seem'd not procreative, seem'd self-whole. 
Somewhat there bides as then abode in me 
Of self-intention in mine offspring here ; 
Not vulgar imitation of man's frame. 
Men will no doubt detect some spirit in them. 
Yet is that somewhat spoilt, as I conceive. 
By grossness of the literal contour still 
Suggesting need that for the artist-act 
Were prototype in earth of other-sex 
My mate ; perversion of perpetuance 
From proper flesh and blood to senseless stone, 
The still-born of an heart hermaphrodite 
Wedded to world and moulding of its marl. 
Here before all men lieth mine heart's disgrace, 
Who, yearning with divine creatorship 
Internal to mine absolute insight 
Of spiritual beauty (as God made me so 
Beautiful in His sight), have sullied self 
By part-performance false of natural law 
In imitation of the God Who made 
(Himself, above the law He made for man, 
75 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Sexlessly procreative, self-supreme !), 

Above His law of nature mating two, 

Flesh out of fiat as 1 made but stone. 

Man cannot make a man of flesh and blood, 

The image of himself in stuff of earth, 

Save by the woman-mystery. My way 

Had better been to hew vacuity, 

Essay no semblance from the block incised 

Which still for all my labor showeth nought 

Of the true man that breathes and moves and knows. 

I had been better wedded to some wench ; 

Well-quit of carving whilst my children grew 

And flourish'd and were I, body and soul. 

By mystery perpetuate in the world. 

Yet have I loved not, scarcely until now 
Felt want of woman for the weal of me. 
My works have issued from the unsex'd stone 
(Or man or woman) mere humanity, 
Not fatherhood nor mother, male nor wife; 
If individual beyond old types 
In all else. Titans merely, sexless gods. 
Haply the procreation by these blocks 
Allay'd the natural longing of the male 
76 



MICHELANGELO 

For femininity and served the need 
Of offspring all the while I dream 'd them art. 
Haply my grim mismarr'd envisagement 
Found favor of the marble I but woo'd 
As any lover with assured success — 
Though still I fancied soul, as man hath soul 
(The power that is beyond the body's power), 
Created in me out of day and night 
These and the sundry monstrance of my craft. 
Me much mistaken ! For at last I love 
And find no satisfaction in these stones 
Which, being for flesh a senseless substitute 
Whilst still no means to mount beyond the flesh. 
Speak nothing of the passion proven in me 
As I am artist to create, beyond 
Material of the world I find me in. 
Expression of the wondrous mastery 
That fills me : to create as I am God 
For mine own truth and love's own truth alone 
Not imitation but perfection of 
The utterance that wells within me now. 
For thus should I be (as I now am man 
To woman, yearning — even whilst to woo 
Intend I never ! — to attain by her 
77 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Body's perpetuation, yea, and soul's 
As bodily bequeathed), be also source 
Of self-divine formation ; yea, my thought 
And hers united to new heaven, new earth. 

The silence that is deathly in these stones. 
Fatal and mocking to my fatherhood, 
Were solemn-splendid in the sweet-tongued song 
I send her, first of many that shall be : 
Best of the hundred hitherto to art 
And man inscribed, but not to any soul ! 
Within the noble language as she reads 
Shall the new world arise that 's ours alone, 
All mine, all hers, to all eternity ; 
No self-defeat in that the voice breathes not. 
Moves not, lives not ; for breath nor motion, life 
Were wanted any in the brain that reads 
And reading re-creates. No body of me 
Is falsely fashion 'd in the marks I make 
Of plume upon the parchment superscribed : 
Nought but some symbol of the thought of sound ; 
A thought itself an art beyond all sign. 
The world of flesh and blood, as other men 
May sense it, leaves me as the mists of Rome 
7^ 



MICHELANGELO 

Burn from the Tiber, or the hills above 

Firenze are released out of a cloud, 

And all in gleam of eye is marvel-clear, 

Impenetrative of the new-won sight 

This love hath lent me as the sun on high. 

Only, it is my soul that, learning hers, 

Is sun in heaven as yet the mists beneath ; 

Is song in silence, speech within my pen 

Unheard but soaring as the morning soars. 

For I have come to love ; and all my need 

Of procreation through this flesh of space — 

Focus'd, enshrined within her woman-heart 

Where it is holy as the snow is white 

That lieth beyond Milano (being of us both 

In consonance with law and hence alive. 

Breathing and moving and inform'd of soul) — 

Sheds from the soul that mounteth more than man 

And leaves a godhead in my song to her. 

It is the art that struggled to be stone 

And could not, but became monstrosity. 

It is the art that, as it alway fail'd, 

Darken'd my brow, furrow'd my temples 'thwart 

With hard perplexity, perturbing all 

To vast unrest that I did labor K)n. 

79 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

It is the art too late to find release 
Wholly, nor smooth the misery from my mask 
Wherewith I clothe my face before the eyes 
Of all men and all women else than her. 
Such as I am, I am, made of mine own 
Too long sojourning here about the world 
A laborer to fashion flesh and blood 
As none but God by His best mystery 
Of woman-love unto the love of man 
May fashion it in image of Himself. 
I unto her may be some poet yet 
Of terrible tenderness, of tragic peace 
By liberation in and through her heart 
From any need to prison under earth 
The meaning that is beauty as I speak it 
Well-order'd to the riming of my soul. 
But unto men must I still play my part 
So long ago assumed ; never to end 
Till lean senility absorb all strength ; 
And art with power to pound or patch a clay 
Die as I die, the struggler, sculptor still. — 
Their pigment, nay design, wherewith of late 
1 sop the Cerberus (I 've call'd it base 
And purpose of all art !) — 't were slight to help 
80 



MICHELANGELO 

Where by device of trick illusively 

Is symbol'd sordid substance, substance alway. 

The manual dexterity I use 

Were still the undertaking ; still the form 

Is space-felt, cynically aping earth 

Indeed (in so far as insulting stone 

With mockery of chiaroscuro and 

The subtile perspective, so far success !) 

Yet warrantable but by fact of stone 

Not imitative, even, of true soul 

Save through the obscuring body : and thus con- 

demn'd. 
The limning with the carving. — I for her 
Am maker. For the rest I am but man. 

These are my children; still-born, struggling things 
Of every gaze that chance to glance them by : 
Insensates of the insensate ; Day or Night ; 
Dawn yet or David ; Twilight or the God 
Of Wine ; Madonna with the Child, the Dead; 
Or Moses half-hewn still within my mind- 
These are my children. But mine art is song 
Sentient in love of her : for her, for me : 
But not for any other of them all. 
8i 



MILTON 

Now am 1 left in mine old age with God 
Alone. Blind, desolate, 1 still have God. 
Princes and potentates they are not God. 

How have I seen the great days of the earth 

Like froth devour'd ; and all our hopes of strength 

Made to a mock and scorn ! But still is God. 

How are the evil raging ; and the wrong 

Wholly triumphant through the length and breadth 

Of this lost England ! Yea, but still is God. 

Yet, shall the commonweal that men have lost 

Be commonweal regain'd ? In God's good time 

Doubtless. But here I sit at Gizeh shorn 

And blind, a mockery. 1 sit; and God. 

Even hath my sacrifice of sight brought nought 

Save bitterness : and commune close with God. 

Yea, in the loss of every outward thing 

Of sight and fortune, opportunity 

To stir foot in God's service ; still 1 owe 

Rich compensation, empyrean hope 

Of him who stands and waits : this life in God. 

Scarce might I mean with any honest heart 

82 



MILTON 

(Though grief would urge it) that in just such ruin 

Alone gain I the vision and the voice 

To sing of Satan, Eve's and Adam's fall 

Through Satan, and the splendor of God's hosts. 

These seem but figure of the truth I feel 

Celestial, overpowering, immense. 

Scarce might I mean (though here I shrink at least 

From sacrilege and stark unreverence) 

How Christ I sing and man's redemption through 

Him, 
The second Adam — 'twere but figure still 
Of this best grace, this unity with God. 
Nor might I mean that I in durance sitting 
Sing the blind Samson, earth's most tragic man 
Of men — save Samson were my very soul 
Named but anew ; and thus were God within him 
The true song's spirit. These I mean not ; yet 
Even as those orbM constellations and 
Sun's fiery magnificence were fountain 
Of mine imaginings of Satan's wars 
When sight was to these eyes, so Satan's hosts 
And God triumphant (truths of inward eye) 
Seem but suggestion of some truth to-come 
Beyond immediate vision, yet the more 
83 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

My faith and hope, my very love of God. — 
Let not the spirit flag because of age ! 

Somewhat it were, to search in my past faith 
For signs of this awakening ; and thus 
Foreshadow something of articulate truth 
Reserved for later ages and a man 
1 know not : trace some growth, development 
Of here and there some partial prophecy. 
Some mutilated vision which in sum 
Shall mean as I by miracle would mean. 
Thus, to the task ! — I cannot well recall 
Even in mine adolescence such weak years 
As were not, half-unconsciously, inform'd 
Of independent judgment in affairs. 
And this I heed well, that, with riper days 
And conscienced full maturity, I took 
Firm attitude of non-conformity 
In spiritual professions. If I vow'd 
No vows (when learning and the studious garb 
Meant clergy ; and the laity, ignorance 
And wassail), 'twas that something in me stirr'd 
Unto revolt ; at best, unto a power 
To deal direct with God and God with me, 
84 



MILTON 

Brooking no intercession from a ciiurch. 

Such tlien the key-note, non-conformity 

And right of private judgment with direct 

Appeal to God in Scripture and in faith. 

Confirm 'd in such view, I at first withdrew 

For travel, study, teaching; when the times 

In public life of independent thought 

Demanded nought, afforded no foothold 

Unto the root-and-branch reformer. Then 

At the true call and in the desperate need 

I labor'd earnestly and honorably 

Preserving independence, unenslaved 

To any project or of friends or foes : 

That England might be England. When the times 

Fell; and I blind and desolate am left 

Alone with God ; mine independence still 

Is mine, my private judgment unimpeach'd 

And unimpair'd. But markedly the appeal 

To God in Scripture or to God in faith 

Is of a novel nature. Let me pause. 

For everything that I have deem'd of God 
His handiwork hath fail'd me. Mine whole world 
Hath sunken and is wrack. — Did I mistake 
85 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

God's will and purpose ? Did I contradict 
The express command and set my strength against 
Omnipotence ? Was God the God of kings 
And tyrants ? Nay, for kings and tyrants deem 
Earth theirs, not God's; and therefore God's good care 
For their good solely, and themselves in the world 
God's vicars, hence in all equivalence 
God upon earth. God cannot work for these. 
Yet have 1 thus been guilty as I blame 
These tyrants ; I have held God partisan 
For this or the other good within my soul 
Or in the world ; though all things else of the world 
(And in my soul) no care of Providence. 
Thus have 1 made these few things of my world 
Tyrant of all else ; and my soul-desires 
God upon earth. God cannot work for these. 
Yea, I, who brook no intercession, fain 
Had interceded even as Church and Pope. 
I, who have writ of Satan's tragedy 
And heroism, had deem'd God's adversary 
No care of God and so no truth of Him; 
Though God were God but in the conquering. 
And Satan very godly, who would brook 
No intercession, but demanded right 
86 



MILTON 

To deal direct with God and God with him. 
Ay, Christ were Christly not in interceding 
Where intercession were a blasphemy, 
But by subduing all things of His soul 
And world to godliness and Providence; 
And thereby making whole His universe. 
Samson were tragic, and God's spirit in him, 
Scarce by the warfare (less by carnal love!) 
But by the cataclysm, involving all 
Alike, of God's wrath on the just or unjust; 
Self, Israel's servant, even as Dagon's hosts! 

Thus the new faith of mine unflagging spirit 
In age as in mine earliest youth is still 
A self-dependent and unswerving zeal 
To deal direct with God, brooking no cant 
Of customary creeds to intercede. 
Yet the new independence craves some fresh 
Fashion of God, Who, equally all things 
Of right and wrong as I must see them, yet 
Fosters the final truth in heaven's own fall. 
I cannot reach the reason why some things 
Of God are right and why some earth-things else 
Are wrong, yet equally of God the same. 
87 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Old faith falls from me as my sight hath fallen, 

Leaving me outer darkness, the dismay 

Indeed of one who sits at Gizeh shorn 

And sightless ; but within, a truth of God 

New : how no evilest tyrant of them all 

But God is with them working still for truth ; 

And how I, wielding on the just and unjust 

Alike the scourge and the sustainment too 

Of man's great epic of the primal sin 

And final godliness, the hellish power 

Of Satan and the healing power of Christ, 

Am left in mine old age blind, desolate 

Indeed ; alone by knowing but all in God, 

God but in all ; my right, their wrong : but God ! 

And thus is God through me, as God through them 
Fill'd of an universal hold of earth, 
Though the wrong triumph. Thus my aged soul 
Hath faith and dealeth still direct with God. 



88 



LEIBNIZ 

What uplift of the spirit in these stars ! 
How, in the pale dawn waxing yonder wide 
And wider with each heart-beat of this breeze, 
Seems each to feed on holier flame, seems star 
Or fiery influence scarce to melt away 
As once men dream'd, but to wax each in place ; 
Remaining each a star yet each the more 
Achieving sunship by the sphere's increase 
Of light I I lean from this stuff'd chamber forth ; 
Some span, may be, project my brow beyond 
This eastward casement ; and receive the dawn 
And all dawn's wonderful significance 
Into my breath and being (soul and all. 
Fatigued with toil of mathematic task 
The night-long !) ; soul and all receive of this 
Heart-beating, breathing movement of the wind ; 
And am resuscitate ; as one arisen 
Out of some sepulchre I sense the truth 
In new strength ; am of insight into God 
More vital than my calculus : am dawn 
And sunship of these stars ! Let there be light 
Even in my laboring brain to clear at last 
89 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The calculus, the monad-chaos from 

All need of preassumption, overlord 

Or arbitrary dawn of a sole sun ! 

Let the new day be stars': sun, but a star 

Self-like more largely luminous ; yet stars, 

Each still a sun. Let the new problem be 

Development inherent to each least 

Of minimalities. Let God be soul. 

Mine and each monad's equally ; no lord 

Unmonadlike ex machina, beyond 

The mutual scheme emptily superposed. — 

How strangely rational ! Behind me heap'd 

Lie year on year of labors, leading but 

To subterfuge : to some absorptive dawn 

Defiguring these stars, to some false-stars . 

Figments of fire on sun's fix'd palimpsest ; 

Not sunlike systems each a dawn, not sun 

Some very star but by earth nearlier view'd. 

Now these things melt away ; nay, wax and burst 

Transfigured each to splendor of this sense 

Of self-conclusiveness ! What uplift of 

The spirit in this waxing of the stars ! 

Might I devise this new-won spirit-truth 
90 



LEIBNIZ 

In terms at last of any calculus ? 

How, within bounds of mathematic need 

For static value, indicate for each 

Minutest element a value earn'd 

Of absolute position, each in self 

The very problem's full infinity ? 

The problem's statement were the problem 

solved ! 
Yea, every part were function of all parts 
Itself whole, yet discernibly a part 
Whose definition must conclude all else. 
No possibility of calculus, 
Of simplification, interchange of place, 
Invariant symbolism of each sign, 
Convertibility in any guise 
Would anywise remain ! Language must stand 
Self-absolute, communicatively 
A mere approximation ; for no sign 
Can bear one meaning in unlike contexts, 
But each is all of speech ! The calculus 
Would prove pure fluxion, still determinate; 
Ay, static not in any part at all 
Save as each part is utterly the whole 
And thus not iterable ; each, unique. 
91 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Nor, to allege of every element 
Fluxional worth wherewith to calculate 
As static till, beyond the problem, by 
Some strange arbitrament were value chosen, 
Were to perform such operation through 
The fluxion. Nay, the fluxion may not stand 
For calculation-usage. Yet, save each 
Be also all and thereby of itself 
Intrinsically make for infinite 
The problem and itself such all's inverse 
Distinctively determining all quanta, 
By its own standard constituting allness, 
And hence incapable within the all 
Of any subdivision (which would add 
A multitude beyond all multitude). 
Remains each least minute — minute soe'er — 
Yet capable of diminution still 
(Because not by true definition as sheerly 
Distinctive implicating all there is) 
As merely static unit capable 
Of iteration, hence analysis, 
Interminably further ; ay, despite 
Interminable aggregation, still 
Quite inexhaustive, plural : yea, in no sort 
92 



LEIBNIZ 

Appropriate to last analysis 
Fluxionalwise of any curvature 
Save curves whose constancy functions as straight. 
Even as, were God some over-monad, strange 
To monad-ideality (yea, such 
False God I dream'd but yesterday), remain'd 
Each individuality of men 
But yet an unit, single ; and nowise 
An individual, but each with each 
Still interchangeable, nowise unique ; 
Hence capable of subdivision still : 
Some part of me, myself ; nor any part 
Quite minimal enough to be myself 
Beyond dispute — not that pineal gland 
Of Gaul's geometrician small enough 
To be the soul ! And yet the soul is all ; 
Yet were each, individual ; each star 
The God, the dawning also ; if beyond 
All mathematic, then were calculus yet 
Scarce metaphysic, scarcely adequate 
To any wisdom : as scarce soul, the shape 
Atomic of extent ! But soul were lift 
And comprehension of yon atom-world 
To morning-song, to spiritual strength 
93 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Now more than formerly, ay, than when all 
Stars sang together. Sing they now my soul ! 

Light breaks; each star in waxing grows a world, 
A sunship and a day-strength. And my cell 
Of litter'd scribblings where 1 turn my gaze 
Is loftily illumined by these floods 
Which fling from this near star, my person 'd self, 
Over the universe. The perfect proof 
Is mine of metaphysic spirit-scheme 
Which needs no God for overlord, no day 
Destroying starship : as no calculus. — 
The proof perfect in faith, not flawless quite 
In demonstration. For this day remains 
All seeming-starless to the sight. No touch 
Finds godship in these limbs and aching brow ; 
Which yearn and seek beyond world's monad- 
scheme 
The absolvent harmony I feel for false ! 
Oh, for fresh logic, strict as all the schools' 
Yet fill'd with insight which might save my work 
From waste ; some firm, well-knit concordance of 
The godship with the individual 
(Which, if by mere discernibility, 
94 



LEIBNIZ 

Concludes distinctively all else ; is whole) 
Wherein each proves each ; wherein even this false 
Abstractive generality, these false 
Exclusive iterative monad-points, 
May stand for error, posited of truth. 
Yea, proving truth by being exhausted, false! 
Then might the calculus be wholly true 
Not by approximation but by full 
Rejection of the explicit elements 
Transform'd to absolute uniqueness each : 
Not now my method. Then might well my soul 
Be more than mere revolt 'gainst current false 
Apotheosis of that infinite 
Whose emptiness of all vitality 
Is held for Godhood ! Then might I be more 
Than Baruch's anti-Christ: who ne'ertheless 
Even in mine own despite must yet retain 
The Spinozistic God of worldlessness 
Beyond my monad-world. — Will such a man 
Be moulded of the times to come ? Will dawn-hour 
Some day be hail'd by one whose spirit faints not 
Back : as my spirit faints to poring-o'er 
These differentials ? One whose harmony 
If preestablish'd yet is instant still; 
95 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Whose apperception, if reflectively, 

Yet absolutely shall conclude in each 

Beyond conceivability of mere 

Exclusive iteration all world else 

By metaphysic beyond calculus ? 

Such will there be ! who shall speak loud and clear 

What now 1 dimly feel : what now I am 

Even in my perfect failure — I who now 

Fulfill world-being, yea, avow my truth 

Of sunship, starship by my standard set 

And self-criterion — truth I fatuous 

Resign for figment of the fever'd brain 

Worn-out with much night-watching. — 

Hail, Lord Sun ! 
Quencher of stars 1 — Be God beyond my soul, 
Leaving me space in little to reflect 
His universe ! The morning is awake 
Without my chamber; from within 1 close 
The casement, monadwise devise my world 
Of calculi, of symbols representing 
Type, order, law ; as God will have it: dream ! 



96 



KEATS 

Such sound as ocean only, autumn ocean, 
Makes in the mellow silences my soul 
And fainting strength unto this autumn hour 
Respond : a murmurous, heart-upwelling lift 
That bursts almost, yet bursts not ; though at last 
Someway is gone, back-lost into the void ; 
Gone, with indrawing, gasp and sob. The drift 
And cast things scarce are troubled ; and the voice 
Nowhere is firm nor forceful ; yet the depth 
And length and breadth of all, that in this hour 
Seems vital, suffers, agonizes, yea. 
To make respond, make feel, this stubborn shore 
Sea's tragedy of mute omnipotence. 

It is the tragedy of aging world 
And of my young indomitable soul 
That bursts almost in singing, sings not quite 
The strong song of the sea when strand and wave 
Are one white turmoil. For I fail from strength 
By uttermost inception ; as this sea, 
Too plastic to the impulse, yields along 
Its length and breadth and through the depths of it 
97 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Unto its own compulsion ; and is lost. — 
Had I the power of rock, to sing yet feel not ! 
Yea, when the wave beats on me, to be vpice ! 

For now I meditate a song of songs : 

Of how the early gods in tragedy 

Of mute omnipotence were all unmade 

By too divine inception. And the song 

Fails from denoting earth and men and Zeus 

For new and nobler Saturn ; but betrays 

A sad indrawing, backward sob and loss 

With Saturn's downfall, Is^v^s the old god there 

Undone : for too divine inception of 

His piteous destiny. — Would that my soul 

Might sing the song of Zeus, Saturn anew 

Made godlier by community with men ! 

Would that my song might be Hyperion ! — 

Would that my soul might burst and fmd its voice ! 

Almost 't is so, 't is well-nigh vocal with 
The insight of this tragedy of mute 
Omnipotence. The year will soon be worn 
Out of this impotence, be autumn sprung 
Unto ripe power of winter. And this soul, 
98 



KEATS 

Released of too swift sensibility, 

Too much of apprehension, freed and fair 

From Rome be journeying with song at last 

Because of utterance through death. — But now 

I sit by this dead northern autumn shore : 

An autumn and an ocean I, a world 

Of mute omnipotence. And in myself 

I hear the lifting swell, the almost burst, 

The sob of all-indrawing ; yea, such sound 

As ocean, autumn ocean, makes among 

The drift things and the cast stones of the shore. 

Lorc 



99 



SHELLEY 

Peace be to mine inquietude of spirit, 

Its fever and its fierce improvidence 

Of utterance, and petulance of heart. 

Peace now be unto me and let me be 

(Alastor-like and as Prometheus' end !) 

All-permeative of this peace-fill'd hour. 

Let Islam sleep now with the sleeping Keats. 

Let me be, with the saturating strength 

Of this firm wind, beyond dejection fill'd 

By noon-tide and the blue, by sea and sky : 

Stout with its streaming yet be tranquil too, 

As o'er these pine-tops, for incessant speed. 

Let the west wind blow power and not dismay. 

For I am as the mountains and the sea 

A solemn purport ; if a cloud, no more 

Of lightning nor of deluge. But I stand 

Steep'd in the breathing of this atmosphere 

That moves and yet is mighty but by peace. — 

Yon lies the bark well-nigh prepared to cruise 

By this sweet coast ; and warm trans-Spezian breezes 

To bless us and refresh with blue and breath 

Of the pristine hyaline. I '11 sit me here 

lOO 



SHELLEY 

Awhile till all is trim-set ; and renew 

Conscience of this that I have lived and been. 

For presage is (as yon high-toppling cloud 

At sail that swells aloft in the noon light 

So white and whelming, angel of this gulf's 

Eternal involution sea with sky !) — 

For presage is of some high change in me 

Which swells and waxes overweening with 

My yearning to embark and be, one season, 

Some firmer, wiser, holier than myself 

In unimpeded and direct commune 

With passion which is not rash inequity. 

With irresistible force which yet is full 

Of calmest beauty, sane and utterly 

True to a self-containment and a quiet 

Which ne'er was mine. Can beauty be aught else 

Than peace, whate'er of outward stress enshrine 

Its poise, its logic and its dignity ? 

For flame-like 1 have tower'd above the ground 
On wing and wild song as the lark ascending 
And seen in vision what these eyes of earth 
Had never seen ; but to the face of earth. 
Its comfort and its vast inspiring, been 

lOI 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

As blind. Shadow and shine have swept through earth 
And I known nought for towering sunward still. 
(And yet, to tower and be but earth-born more 
By every sun-pulse ! To be cloud in truth : 
Or pine-tree yonder, rooted even as branch 'd !) 
Thus, have I not transcended every hue 
Of nature or of humankind to give 
To each thing somewhat of a mystery. 
Phantasm and image of its proper shape 
Projected rainbow-wise, but no true gleam 
Of the earth-paradise I named yet knew not ? 
Have not I made sweet mouthings of the scents 
And sounds beneath, above, beyond me here — 
Only to question still, and speak nowise 
Inherent beauties, the conclusive self 
Of each that is a conscience even in mine ? 
I, of all earth enamor'd, yet have said : 
* There is no God ' ; and have my god of love 
In cloud-shadow and sunshine nowhere found. 
For ignorance that his right form and face 
Are in me, therefore in the least of these. 
Him I have call'd no personal deity 
But some all-power ; and yet have furbish 'd forth 
Him in the fancied Eros of an age 

I02 



SHELLEY 

When all-power spake not nor was known of men, 

Thus yielding some false-person and no god. 

Yet, if an all-power of this human soul 

Be known and be my substance (as being known 

Implies such self-conclusion), shall I seek 

Beyond the form and function of this scene 

In mine imagining of its wild peace 

To prove the person of its deity 

In this my person and in each of these 

Who individually each may know 

(By sentience and by insight occupying 

Function and form of any other here) 

A meaning to the name and deed of love ? 

How have I lived in love and never known it ; 

But sought beyond, above ; bewailing all 

Which actuality might offer ; even 

When most adorning these, then most denying 

The personal godhead of their naked fact ! 

Yet see, I stretch my touch forth but to feel 
This staggering pine that, stalwart to the breeze. 
Stands world-aware ; and am, by his ripe pulse, 
Person of pine-stuff ; I am he — nowise 
By metaphor, by no sham allegory 
103 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

But by my conscious occupation of 
His form and function as he holdethi mine — 
Each in his self-respective poise, one passion 
Of cosmic intermingling. Yea, how else 
Aver that 1 be poet and he pine 
Save that I am, in true imagining 
Of insight, pine-sap and pine-pristine strength ; 
As he in pine-sort and in pine-degree 
(Defined as my best science may define it) 
In vegetative majesty likewise 
Poet-partaker in my humanhood ? 
That I have written in early years how all 
Of earth's subhuman yet were human-like 
Aware and loving, man in less degree 
And soul-fill'd somewise : such a simpler creed 
Missing the true soul-intropermeance 
(Which guarantees distinctive quality 
To each partaker in the polar pact) 
Might scarce protect from feverish petulance 
Even one like me untamed to downright thought 
Nor stern consistence and articulance 
Of intellectual process. For I felt 
The meaning ; yet was tortured, driven to mad 
Evasion of this cosmic universe 
104 



SHELLEV 

Of sane interdependence fact with fact : 

Felt merely ; fretted, utterly debarr'd 

From logic's satisfaction : found not peace 

In picturing mystery beneath (an earth 

Sentient anthropomorphically) and 

A phantasm, overhuman though none less 

Anthropomorphic, unreal, inane ! — 

Such still the conceit of this unquiet screed 

Which, 'spite these firm winds and insistent 

stems. 
These toppling clouds of earth-inwoven weight, 
I 'mid the bosom of yon Apennines 
Scrawl'd late, of figures dark for flood of light, 
Wan shapes in chariots hurtling through those 

throngs 
Of earth's unburied and unburiable 
Ghost-things of Sheol ; and their rout was all 
A pageantry, a symbol — and I ceased 
Still with no substance — ay : ' What, then, is 

Life ? ' — 
Such question can be answer'd by no creed 
Of fantasy and ghouls of humankind 
Peopling no space, else peopling spaces where 
Are other lives and nurtures still ignored. 
105 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Such creed pursues peace of a breathless chase 
Hot-hearted, nor knoweth how insistency 
Of unfantastic insight, the pure touch 
Of pine or strong wind as the pine or wind 
Is most itself, such touch on palm or brow 
Solves the enigma, yields a perfect peace 
Of intropermeation still more sure 
With every pulse of passion ! — Such is Life. — 

Alastor lives not nor Prometheus ; 
Keats is eternal memory, nought else. 
Yet am I here of this eternity 
Call'd cognizance, my conscience, ay, of each 
As each is ; cognizance in every touch 
Strengthen'd by passing ever on, and aye 
Evolving ; which, involving all of earth 
And ocean, sky and shadow, sun or soul, 
Is spirit : and needs not work by witchery. 
Such strength, being self-contain 'd, stays temper- 
ate too 
And provident in every utterance. — 
Let this communing be my first of hymns 
To Beauty intellectually sane 
And worth the dedication of a life 
io6 



SHELLEY 

In peace as was not hitherto vouchsafed : 
A Beauty which is common deity. 

They call. The bark invites me to new life. 
Though yon cloud burst, what boots it ? It hath 
been. 



107 



HEGEL 

In reference to Christ, the * Christian claim 

* To Godhood of a single man ' ? Would I 

* Who speak of God as of an Absolute 

* Be acquiescent to enroll myself 

* Christ-follower or no ? ' — A subtlety 
1 fain would answer by a subtler still ! 

The correspondence, friend, between us two 
Stands dignified, ennobled by the zeal 
With which thou seekest truth. To thee alone 
(And this shall clarify, yea, new-defme 
What save for thee remain 'd in me obscure 
And stale) I may discriminate the true 
From false with literal judgment, feeling firm 
Reliance in thine own discriminative 
Interpretation. And I hold the point 
Of best, most fruitful attitude toward Christ 
Perchance a moot one ; still not wisely solved 
Unless with due regard for audience, 
For chance to be interpreted aright. 
Thus, for the mass of those my discipline 
Holds sway with, might there be a dangerous drift 
Of radical, even atheistic, rant 
1 08 



HEGEL 

In misinterpretation of my terms ; 

Else, haply, an unspiritual ipsism ; 

Spake I with uttermost unbosoming. 

In manuscript or volume thou wilt find. 

Save this, no rigid-wrought examining 

Of Christ and Christian in their present worth 

As creeds for ripe truth-seeking : save in this 

The which when well-digested (and, if need. 

Refuted, friend) I charge thee straight destroy 

Out of men's sight. The times are not yet ripe 

Save only mine and thine. — For, know, the scheme 

Of truth develops in men's absolute mind 

With grade from false toward true ; the foregone truth 

Turn'd false, the truth to-come not yet ripe truth 

Save for those souls elaborate beyond 

The mean elaboration of men's souls. 

Christ's truth for Christ might well be true, if still 

By logic in the sequel shown now false. 

(And first, the figment of presumptuousness 
In thee or me or Christ or any spirit 
Needs no consideration. Where the truth 
Is spoken, acted, lived, attains itself 
Expression, no presumptuousness hath place — 
109 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

God or no God ; Christ, I or thou proved God ; 

Were utmost reverence — a becoming self- 

Scrutinization of one's absolute mind : 

If only proof be diligently firm 

Nor words be wasted in avoiding proof.) 

In brief, then, friend, thy question might be put : 
What bearing were of Christ and Christ's God-claim 
In Christian creed, to my well-reason'd system 
Of absolute spirit in its self-defined 
Intrinsic involution of itself ? 
The claim of Christ well known and well avouch'd 
Were personal divinity — if not 
Divinity of self as merely man, 
Yet in some sort divineness of the man — 
Not obviously made for nor applied 
To any man save Christ of all mankind. 
Thus in a general acceptance Christ 
Means claim to Godship of some single man 
As man, though not of other single men. 
Remains the choice (admitting absoluteness 
For philosophic postulate approved) 
'Twixt this and others of that triune scheme 
Which dominates all thought — this realism 
no 



HEGEL 

And those the mystic and the spiritual 
In dialectic — these : divinity 
Of general mankind and only so 
Of any as each might be held alone 
An instance of the Platonistic type ; 
Or, otherwise, of every man as self 
In absolute sense ; and therefore all mankind 
Divine, alone by virtue of each Godhood 
(Though these as God are utterly at one) 
Collectively arraign'd. And of this last 
Might Christ without distortion seem to speak 
When purged of metaphor in passages 
Which place believers as his brethren in 
The Father's household whereof he is chief. 
(But more of this anon.) For mine own part 
My teaching at first sight might seem to urge 
Divinity of general mankind 
(The mystic among these hypotheses) 
Not of a special person, whether Christ 
Or thee or me or any of them all. 
And I have seem'd, for mere conformity 
To general prepossession, to except 
Christ from the rule and still acknowledge him. 
Are these two views compatible ? — I scarce 
III 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(For teaching's sake in my timidity 

Of misinterpretation — nay, how strange 

In most men's eyes, from the truth-champion 

Such compromise-confession !) thus have sought 

Exact discrimination hitherto 

Between these views. Posterity will find 

Choice of interpretations ; nothing shown 

In any work of mine to guide the choice 

'Twixt general humanity, else Christ. 

Now for the subtlety, the fresh-defmed 

Elaboration of this absolute soul 

To new discrimination. Times shall be 

When this must be attempted 'fore all men 

For teaching's sake ; but times are not yet ripe 

Save mine and thine. Destroy this screed ; I fear 

False-witness by the general mistaking 

Of that I have to offer thee alone. 

For Christ the self-assertion would suffice 

(If Christ be God ; and God, no person else) 

Without communication to men else ; 

For general assertion of mankind's 

Genus and thus divinity, must one 

Proclaim upon the house-tops truths no ear 

(If absolute truth be not of any person) 

112 



HEGEL 

Could comprehend nor any tongue proclaim ; 
For the new subtlety shall I and thou 
Suffice for self, for Christ, for all mankind ! 
'T will out, in its ripe time of absolute truth ; 
If not (as in the sequel shown) by force 
Of general system, yet by interplay 
Of men's mind-absolute : as mine and thine. 

To criticise the current Christ-idea : — ■ 
'T is well compatible with absolutism 
That one might claim rights of an absolute, 
Identity with fatherhood, a sonship 
Yet uncreate. In so far as did Christ 
Mean Christ's own personal divinity 
Stands the conception philosophic, proven 
By merest spiritual rights of self. 
And such claim were consistent equally 
As fundamental postulate within 
Each of these three schemes of alternative 
'Godship'. Were Christ the sole God, were mankind 
God and we functions, were each man as self 
A Godship and conclusive each of all, 
On either of these three hypotheses 
Might Christ proclaim : * I and the Fatherhood 
113 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

* Are one '. I thus accept fully in form 
Christ's claim to be divine. The problem lies 
In practical interpretation : whether 
Christ's Godship can exclude men else from God ; 
Or if Christ's Godship merely means a right 
As instance of a godly type which, though 
Alleged for self-defining, scarce allows 
Unless by metaphor that any man 
Is wholly godly; or if Christ concludes 
A system of divine Christ-absolutes, 
Call'd men, conclusive each of all. And so 
Grant we the Christ-claim. Can it, then, preclude. 
As in the popular acceptance, rights 
Of Godship in disciples, scribes, ourselves ? 
At first thought one would yield : In this duplex 
Coincidence of Godship, the All-One, 
With man, the One-of-All, must such a truth 
Be single in each aspect; God being one, 
Must God's coincident and antipode 
Be likewise one. (Though opposite of one 
Were multitude?) Such is the Christian creed, 
Which shunning ipsism must assign to Christ 
The single God-antipodean share 
In universal Godship. But at once 
114 



HEGEL 

Asserts the paradox : If God be whole 

And yet coincident with finitude, 

Then finitude unto the all-divine 

Is somewhat, is of rights; and, being not-God, 

Must either oppositely-coincide 

Else limit very Godship. And this last 

Conceit of limitation stands debarr'd 

By very concept of an absolute. 

Hence, if the Christ be God (and God someway 

Must man-defme Himself, else scarce were God 

As man's world is concern'd), can no man be 

Excluded from such Godship as is Christ's. 

The realism of the ' thou not I ' 

(Of Christ, though not ourselves, for very God) 

Stands utterly refuted by the truth 

That God and Christ, who ne'ertheless were man, 

Are one. And hence suggests the mysticism, 

The doctrine of a God-in-general 

Wherein we share, whereof are instances 

Thou, I, or Christ alike ; but neither one 

Divine as person still. Will this prove truth ? 

And here my teaching plausibly might be 
Supposed to halt : Granting the Christ-divine, 
"5 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Then general humanity were God ; 
And each were instance, none yet utterly 
A Godhood. Yet I hold and now propound 
A system more consistent with the truth 
That opposite-coincidence inheres 
'Twixt God and fmitude as shown (indeed 
By utmost logic ; and for faith) by Christ. 
For, lo ! in God, even though generalized 
Must (else the self-defining Absolute 
Were nought ; else Plato, ay, and Aristotle 
Abundantly arrived at truth in holding 
The species, the particular, related 
To its own type and thus, though ' mystically ' 
Identical, realistically still 
Delimiting the universal !) must 
The opposite-coincidence inhere 
Of type with instances : no type conceived 
Except of instances. Wherefore to cite 
A general humanity must mean 
Not a conceptually severable 
Entity which may or may not have such 
And such a realization, and remains 
Itself regardless of each special case ; 
Yet somewhat which hath definition but 
ii6 



HEGEL 

In so far as defined in cases, each 

Contributing a definition, yea, 

Uniquely other than such type-defined 

Of any group or instances beside. 

Thus a determinate ' in-general ' 

Inheres but to each instance and were else 

Nothing in general because defined 

By no self-instances but limited 

By facts : and universalness debarr'd. 

Wherefore, when Christ's claim reads: Each man 

of all 
Is Godhood by the general intent 
Of each to oppositely-coincide 
With infiniteness ; shows that finitude 
(Which, by its single self -defining, posits 
All men as system-members each in place 
Distinct, unique, non-interchangeable) 
Determinate when conceived as from the stand 
Of each determinant ; each man of all : 
Self-totalizing, universal, God 
Even by finally contributing 
Of God-the-One an unique worldlihood 
Which were not otherwise coincident 
With God, nor God's in any sort as world. 
117 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Wherefore the general humanity 

Is genuine, actual, definable 

Only if 1, thou, Christ or each alike 

Is absolute Godhood : none excluding aught 

From ultimate divinity ; and yet 

No Godhood independently conceived 

Regardless of the character and truth 

Of each-and-each man as each lives and breathes ; 

And God, God, but by God-proved -very-man. 

Friend, is the subtlety appreciable ? 
Note the nice demarkation. This were no 
Plurality anthropologic of 
Greek superhumans who are merely men 
Made men immoderate and impossible. 
No multiplicity of God as God 
Inheres to true finite-coincidence. 
For, even as the God is infinite 
In each, and only infinite at all 
By utterly unique discrimination 
Of man from man, yet even this infinite 
Of each, being total, is the same in each. 
And, being the same, is just the unique God 
The more discriminately by each new 
ii8 



HEGEL 

Recomplication through this universe. 
Christ is the God, I am the God, and thou 
And each of any, not by being alone 
Singly some God ; nor yet by instancing 
A general identity defined 
In some mere mysticism quite apart 
From actual definition in its facts ; 
But each by being discriminately one 
Of many unique others ('house ' among 
The ' Father's many mansions ') only so 
Insistently by very virtue of 
An irreducible distinctiveness 
Defining all else each as each and so 
A total, universe, each in its best 
Discrimination ; each as self thus God : 
The God ; and there is never God beside. 

Thus is the scheme of absoluteness shown 
An actual affair of thee and me 
Even as of Christ in Christ's good hour of life ; 
Of each man in his hour of noblest strength. 
Whence follow many doctrines strange to thought 
In present days : how ' freedom ' were this sense 
Of utter world-conclusion through each act 
119 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(Howe'er in other view necessitated) 

Firmly discriminative judgmentwise ; 

Not by mere choice (delimiting the soul 

Even by the rejected act-alternative) 

But by will-insight thus coincident 

With the compulsion : how mortality 

Were by the absolute coincidence 

Not stale-perpetuated day by day 

Through soul-migration nor through influences 

Of works and wisdom on succeeding men, 

But, through the eternity of each least act 

As new-defining every act of all. 

Immortal to itself, beyond all death ; 

Though none the less this flesh-mortality. — 

Thus in this brief, my supreme act of judgment 

Uncompromisingly discriminant 

Of multiple meanings, postulates my spirit 

Unto itself an immortality, 

A freedom and a Godhood. Friend, I thank thee.' 

Judge if I be Christ-follower or no ! 



120 



EMERSON 

This quiet Concord to mine indolent thought 

Hath long been inspiration, but to-day 

Shows limitation, faileth to attain 

Sufficient dignity to ape man's soul. 

Nature hath been my spirit's resting-place 

To pass in pleasance 'twixt the banks of God 

The safeguard, the immutable firm truth. 

I have been as this river slothfulwise 

Allowing alteration toward the sea 

Yet scarce conceiving doubt of the green land. 

To-day 't is different. I return to-day 

(Here in my hand a book disquieting 

Writ of one lately dead whom 'live I knew not) 

To this my shady station o'er the stream 

Not still as homeward to the heart of things 

But strangely, skeptic of the sweet wide scene 

Its amplitude to satisfy the soul 

Fit for horizons that enshrine no truth 

Taboo'd beyond an inmost scrutiny. 

Mine is emancipation from all creed 

To-day : no citizen I of earth, no scion 

Of fiat, no member of multocracy ; 

121 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Just by mine effort to establish truth, 
Create world-system and autocracy — 
Yea, no disciple even of this one dead 
Whose work 1 find so faith-disquieting ! 
Whatever be there of an Over- Soul 
Without my soul must prove its right to-day 
To credence, must establish as my banks 
The bounds and conduits of a private power 
Else universal in and of myself. 
To-day primarily I am myself : 
If also soul, how then were soul aught else ? 

The doubt were doubtless unintelligible 
To any save myself, yea, unto me 
In any mood save mine upon this morn : 
Disturb'd if not enlighten'd, deeply stirr'd 
And troubled by the witness of this man. 
He speaks not plainly, seems almost with me 
To need some over-lord, yet ne'ertheless 
Attempts a system of distinctive things 
Self-unified without amalgamance — 
Unlike the mergence in mine over-soul. 
I have announced divinity that seem'd 
While overarching and enshrining soul 

122 



EMERSON 

To liberate, infmitize the man. 
And so have friends interpreted the faith 
With satisfaction. I alone demur. 
For, lo, the liberation seems to prove 
But novel Platonism, like the Greek's 
A leveling to Rome's democracy : 
A substitution of the legal right. 
As each is man, for world-self moralism ; 
As one is all, for all-conclusiveness 
Of universe unto each self unique. 
For, if an Over-Soul (which may not owe 
Relations various, but were thus finite 
Being incomplete in each) communeth with 
All men alike, were every man alike 
Equal in insight of the absolute truth ; 
Each person (if no longer atomized 
As in the Stoic schema ; yea, though lifted 
To bland fatuity of the perfect State) 
Unit equivalent, indifferent 
(Brahmanic, if not quite Christ-like, mysticism) 
I or the thief, yea, man even or the beast — 
Incapable all of value ; scions all 
Of blank arbitrament, authority 
And fiat beyond reason : worth ruled out 
123 



PCI5MS OF PERSONALITY 

With any judgment of morality, 
With any quality of each-not-each. 
That yonder bird sings with a meaning made 
Birdwise, unlike the meaning of my songs, 
Is ultimate distinction. I may sing 
Wood-notes, may wonderfully fee! in me 
Response unto yon woodland rhapsodizing ; 
The ultimate discrimination may 
Be overlaid with what one will of rich 
Mysterious insight of the neighbor-need. 
Yet am 1 still not nature ; no divine 
Absorbent mingleth mine with other persons 
As I here stand and saturate a world 
(Even as this Hegel hath his hold on me) 
With thought unthought of any other man : 
Suggested yet nowise put forth of him. 
The Indie myth and Maia were scarce mine own - 
More than did Plato so intend his truth. 
Yet Plato fail'd with his high poetizing 
To speak an unambiguous truth to mine. 
In him lay seeds of blank indifferences 
Which cropp'd with ripening of Lucretian moods 
To self-despair. I must assure mine own 
Ecstatic insight of the whole divine 
124 



EMERSON 

Against deintegration. For the truth 
Must hold some system of this earth to-day, 
Of me and men and yonder murmuring stream 
Unsame in attribute as if no God 
Were immanent nor any whole inhered. 
Nor will identity of generic terms 
In attribution vouchsafe sameness to them 
Save genus-substance be some Over-Soul ! — 
Relinquishing no truth which I have grasp'd 
Of immanence, how save the hierarchy 
Of them and me from mergence in the mob 
Of monad-puppets, equally of God 
Indeed ; but, being indifferent, hence inane ? 
The green land flows within itself ; the sea 
Is image of the unresting alterance 
Of all things ; even this quiet Concord shows 
Passage but by appreciation (ay. 
Contrast in speed or kind of passage) scarce 
By any standard of unchanging earth. 
How save the soul from Heraclitus' flux. 
Pure fmitude plausible to no sense 
Of some morality : relationship 
Responsible beyond the moment-man, 
Inherent yet to him ? How save this shore 
125 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Whereon I stand ; how prove within myself 

Judgment of speed nor kind of passage, ay, 

Assurance even of this quiet stream. 

This indolent land, this sea toward which all tend 

As type and image ? Were we sheer distinct. 

Pure flux and passing, then were we but the more 

Self-imperceptible, alike inane. 

And thus would this voice in these pages prove it, 

Essaying if scarce comprehensibly 

A static continuity through all-time. 

An immanent eternity in change. — 

There shall be soul though Soul may be no more 

An over-world nor mere infinity. 

Someway shall I perceive the stream doth move 

Though Zeno, though Spinoza, though myself 

Have proven a motion all impossible. 

Someway the stream doth move and is by motion 
An inspiration, still a type to-day 
Of mine own nature-born morality. 
The hour of this Hegel in my heart hath come 
To beat beyond the master by some hint 
In him contain'd : no over-immanence 
In anywise infmitizing, save 
126 



EMERSON 

The soul reside in, be, the moving man's 
Irreconcilable discrimination 

From each and all things else that make his world! 
Such were a system of this earth to-day ; 
The intimate necessity of each 
For definition, self-determinance, 
Requiring every other each in place 
And character determinate thereby. 
For thus might I establish of myself 
An universe, be as I boast divine. 
Thus might I, as best insight of mine earth, 
Admit each unto his divinity 
Of world-establishment ; each person thus 
Concluded of my system : thus alone 
Conclusive each and equally divine. 
Nor might another schema so provide 
System sans all hiatus ; this of all, 
Appropriately to mine otherness 
From every item of mine earth to-day, 
Affording godship unto each and each 
Neither as units of plurocracy 
Nor yet as emptiness, Brahmanic void. 
The dialectic were superfluous 
In pettier detail. All the soul doth need 
127 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

For self-establishment were just the need 
Of each for each, within its actual place 
Thereby defined, thereby concluding all 
In individuals each determinate : 
Each individual determinately 
An universe, conclusive, spiritual. 
Or mind or matter may within the spirit 
Be truthfulest ; but both are immanent 
Each truth in sort : * mind ', as I feel my world 
A soul-establishment, germane to self ; 
' Matter ', as that same world concludeth me 
And so hath semblance of an outward thing 
Compulsive and beyond my private power. 
But world is my determinative self 
At growth, at dialectic if you will. 
Yet absolute through all sans over-lord. 
The problem of such time-eternal soul 
Were manifold, a process scarce for me 
To formulate, though hinted of him here — 
This Hegel who has work'd within me now. 
I for an hour have grasp'd the great insight, 
Have given it speech within my heart : a system 
Of earth as earth is, spiritual, self-contain 'd 
Yet nowise naked of variety : 
128 



EMERSON 

A system, self-containment which is beauty, 

The beauty that my creed hath wholly miss'd. — 

Thus doth my quiet Concord keep its flow 

In varying, determinate contrast 

With this green land. And thus are land and sky 

Still fitly pictured from my station here 

Whose sweet familiarity of view 

Fills an horizon proven my very soul 

Replete with meaning for my daily thought 

Now sanction 'd beyond stain of indolence. — 

Thus am I risen through nature unto God. 



129 



WORDSWORTH 

It is a world serenely white ; a sky, 

Whence snow hath lately fallen, palest blue. 

And only where some craggy fell uprears 

Too steep a slope for crystal covering 

Doth earth show anywhere unto the sky 

Its customary face. Save for yon bluff 

Of perpendicular uprise seems world 

No mortal struggling ; but undying peace 

Spread dedicate to God. And I, alone 

Of this high-moulded summit, like some cloud, 

Of which God's heaven were the home, find here 

A place not unlike home, a station'd rest 

Unto my soul, whence earth, mine earth and God's, 

Spreads patently a picture of the truth 

Of life immortal. 

Yet yon scrags none less 
Are earth's, are God's; and seem eternally 
At struggling ; mortal by their every move 
And wasting ; as, save for this snow-of-an-hour, 
This covering of a momentary creed. 
Were earth all struggling up unto the clouds 
Which, sea-begotten, bear unto these hills 
130 



WORDSWORTH 

Oblivion but scarce serenity. — 

What were that immortality of labor 

Which must be earth's ; and, being earth's, be God's 

And mine; which, snowless, peaceless, yet were some 

Sufficient satisfaction to the soul ? 

A growth, a flowering of these grassy fells 

When the high sun is quickening, and meanwhile 

A waiting, patient and expectant thus 

Not for this simulated peace of pure 

Pale sky and sheeted snow, but for those laws 

Which in the course of God's diurnal year 

Make snow, as rain and sun, by wear and wash, 

Frost-wrench and tempest-wrack, to quicken earth 

Sea-born and struggling ? — Is there any peace ? 

Lo ! I have dream'd of life-immortal as 
A peace ; and came, to brood over these snows 
As o'er a world not stale and customary 
In mystic ecstasy. But now I feel me 
No mere peace here ; no immortality 
Of form and function, yet no worker in it ; 
Of pale Nirvana, heaven beyond a world ; 
Rather, some heaven 's-own substance, yea, sea-born 
And struggling, fallen over earth's scarr'd face 
131 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

To soften, not conceal, suggest, not cover 
From understanding and intelligence, 
The peace and immortality, the presence 
Of God within His world and each of us 
As each is worker and his works have life : 
Despite all momentary creed of life 
Beyond the grave and God beyond His world ; 
A symbol of the eternity in time. 
Each moment, even conclusive of times all : 
Yea, of the wonder of accustom 'd things. — 
Thus turn I and descend ; take up mine earth 
Anew, cured of the mystic quietism. 
Thus take 1 up the task with eye indeed 
Uplift unto these mountains whence hath come 
This help, ennobling labor and the strife 
Of serious contemplations. For each task 
I sense for some stage of the strenuous soul's 
Good growth in wisdom, never ceasing, not 
One instant to be wholly overlaid 
By any snow-oblivion ; but where rear'd 
Aloft, distinct and startling, there most meant 
Of every cloud-wrack, every fog o' the sea, 
As even of each intervale and glen 
Snow-sleeping. 1 descend ; but learn each task 
132 



WORDSWORTH 

Serene but by insistent earnestness ; 

Eternal by an infinite influence 

Essential in the task, not born of it ; 

An absolute inference, divinely high. 

Wide, deep and strong through all God's elsewhere 

tasks 
Of earth and men. And thus a task of God 
Immortal and appropriate to peace. 



133 



THOREAU 

Though scant ten furlongs here from human home, 

Here are there creatures only of the wood : 

Now with the coming of the fall's first frost 

As not whilst man moved in the summer fields 

Am I alone anthropomorphic here. — 

Scarce sign from any beast hath been since dusk 

Closed in around. No sound from world without me 

Save wash of the glimmering lonely lake with cry 

Of far-off loon more lonely, or the surge 

Of wind in the trees ; and constant crackle, flap 

Of the camp-fire flame. The half-moon waxing 

sweeps 
Westward ; the stars, Orion following on. 
Pass o'er me : me alone with my fed flame. 
For this is an espousal of the woods : 
I and primordial fire at last alone. — 

Once had I desire of better bridal. But 
'T was contrary decreed. And I am wed 
To these alone, I mateless of my kind ; 
I fronted by the problem — is it of God, 
That mutual insight men may best name Love ? — 
134 



THOREAU 

Of mates inanimate — a divine of Nature, 

But no divinity of human kind ! 

I sole anthropomorphic ; and my God 

Of daily human help to me denied. 

The question is if God, denied to me 

In social longings toward my nobler kind, 

Be God, be yet divine here as of these : 

Whether love's insight be of beast and branch 

Admissibly as seems for me ordain 'd. 

The question might not come upon a man 

Whose marvelous desire of marriage might 

Attain fulfillment : that the social strength 

Might daily, hourly wed with social strength 

Of insight and perception similar 

And thus might learn world-sanctity of both 

By individuation (heart with heart 

In the union) soul from soul — the humane God ! 

I had built altars to the humane God, 

Had ne'er been stoical, aloof, remote 

As now : I was not born the cynic — but 

Now is it come upon me by my fate 

And must be met alone by me of men 

(Not openly in works I make for men) 

Unto myself and for the saving of 

135 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

My universe by me possess'd alone, 
And of my heart which only earth may hold. 
How feel divinity of me and mine 
Denied the prime anthropomorphic truth 
Of mutual insight mutually defined ? — 
I am then mated with primordial flame, 
A creature of the woods, a beast, a branch 
Whilst none less human. Is such life divine ? 

1 may not find in this primordial flame, 
These dim sky-neighboring tree-tops, nor the stars 
Nor painted moon, nor these ensanguined leaves 
Of the flickering fire-lit circle, that intent 
Of mutual recognition, divination 
Which in the hold of human heart in heart 
Directly meaneth God and tells of Him 
Transcendent wholeness of the immediate soul. 
My spirit, yea, so much more than comprehends 
The pitiful simplicity of these 
('Soe'er complex to mere analysis ! ), 
Is still so much alone beyond their strength 
Of social sympathy that I must needs 
Deny of these direct associates 
The marks indicative of self-sublime 
136 



THOREAU 

Spirituality, of reverence 

Unto my soul acclaiming them its own. 

These are not-mine because they know not me 

Nor feel me more than as some clod of earth, 

Some miasm or some wandering holocaust, 

Some dread, some danger and some death to them 

Uncomprehended in the workings of 

Its untoward power. Such is a man to these, 

If he be aught at all ; not known as man 

But as a beast, a branch (ay, mischief-working) 

Resourceful over any, but not in kind 

Anthropomorphic as I know my power. 

Unto a life uncognizant of man 

I cannot yield the title of divine — 

'Soe'er outspread to stellar systems, though 

In mine own sight of generality 

I be as nought within its size and strength 

As I am clod — such world were godless still. 

No Nature can be God. May I a man 

Shorn of God-kinship sink to atheism. 

Yield me unto the truth of earth and these } 

I doubt me if such godlessness be truth. 
Or earth, as such earth-fact, be fact at all ! 
137 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Earth may, as 1, within and for itself 
In each least detail mean an universe 
Similar in a spirituality 
Minuter merely, in a self-detail 
Less complex in recomplication, yet 
Entire, so whole, divine, wherein my manhood 
Finds plain acceptance as I, being a clod, 
Am clod-wise spiritual and enshrined of these ? 
Yea, in the subtler scheme this difference 
Of fact anthropomorphic from the fact 
Vegetal, chemical (distinction final 
And therefore perfecting, requiring all 
Distinguish'd facts in definition for 
Each intimate essence), yea, were final proof 
In either sort respectively of earth's 
As even of man's conclusive personal scope 
Of consciousness interminable, each — 
Within its absolute series qualitative — 
So guaranteed fulfill'd omniscience. 
I then am godly by my recognition 
In sympathetic insight not alone 
Of personalities so similar 
As like for like for my faith to return 
But herein and more widely, readily 
138 



THOREAU 

By insight of an earth whose term distinct 

As otherwise than mine I yet acknowledge 

A sympathy, an active interest 

Creatively, which mine creator-wise 

Must reconstruct to realize at all. 

So either way, by bridal or by espousal 

Even of the flame primordial, world and I 

Detect a fundament, simplification 

Of reconciliation, self-support 

In mutual antithesis reclaim'd. 

So I alone anthropomorphic here 

Am godly though my God no more may be 

Anthropomorphic ; though this earth of beast 

And branch and fed fire and the stars on high 

Be neither earth nor star as men have dream 'd 

Condemning them to clodliness unsoul'd 

As man they fancied alone worthy God ! 

Such have I learn'd by biding but apart 
A moment, some few furlongs from my kind 
As, fate commanding, hath my spirit craved 
Toward learning new God in default of old. 
The Deity I learn of wilderness 
Were scarce the deity of human home 
139 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Secrete from wilderness. For man 'mid man 
Associate in clanship and in creeds 
Ecclesiastic seeth but with an eye 
Sole to man's interest at the best, denying 
All rights and interests of his weaker kind 
(And thus denying much of man's own soul !) 
Unrecognized for kith and kin through God, 
Through contrast and through insight each in sort. 
Lo ! my desire of marriage, once fulfill'd 
(Save she my mate anthropomorphic had 
With me espoused the fire primordial here !) 
Had barr'd my spirit forever from the truth 
Of God the uttermost entirety 
(By characteristic quality absolute) 
Of each world-system : each yet infinite 
Because, within itself, from other selves 
Interminably distinctive through the whole 
Of star-stuffs, earth and beasts and branches each 
Anthropomorphic only as my heart 
Of man is soul beyond such lesser souls, 
More complicate of quality, more God. 
Yet thus are the creatures of the forest godly 
As I ; and God, that insight best call'd Love, 
Immanent in us all, as each is nowise 
140 



THOREAU 

Other and thus defineth self by each. — 
I had desire of better bridal, but 
'Twas contrary decreed. And I at last 
Acknowledge Nature and am not alone ; 
Am cynic never, and still dedicating 
My work to man, yea, though aloof, remote. 
Yet, had I wedded, haply then through her 
Some inward soul-distinction had been seen 
More intimate : more marking me as man 
Above not-man ; more marking Truth for God ? 



141 



BROWNING 

Strange, sudden, startling, that my book should 

be 
'Proven beloved, demonstrably held 
* At heart's core of the cultured ; popular 
' Of the public '. Ay, my publishers ' besieged 
'For reprints'. — Here, these scribblings from the 

post 
Fervent, frenetic ; yea, as utterly 
Super-appreciative, wide of the mark 
Of a just estimate, as hitherto 
In complementary infelicities 
My critics crush 'd me. Had I done those things 
Men cursed me for, this craziness had come 
Scarce sooner. Had I left but more undone 
The things they condescendingly approve 
Should I adopt them mine, still had I held 
Inviolate my private sanctity 
Of sure self-judgment ; nor been overwhelm'd 
With this effusiveness. — 'T is all well meant, 
Doubtless. 'T is yet distressingly apart 
From principles of poetry and strength. 
While it was scorn, I could work dogged-wise 
142 



BROWNING 

In equipoise ; sad that my verse should be 
Miscomprehended ; certain none the less 
That nor miscomprehension, nor the laws 
They arrogantly promulgated might 
Alter one whit the care-felt speech of soul 
I seriously expatiated. Now 
That somewhat of my soul hath seriously 
Touch'd them, 't is well, 't is justified : but yet 
Shakes it the equipoise. For I must see 
Equal miscomprehension ; sense how few 
Of all these sympathizers rightly feel 
True trend and purport of my poems. So 
Stand I alone ; not as before in sort 
To champion, urge consideration for 
A genuine intention — so proceed 
In work's assurance to redoubling work — 
But to be deprecator, advocate 
Of sterner estimate ; to work, if work 
At all, in self-distrust, decrial of 
Inmost endeavoring. Now must I sit 
Idle awhile, now that success has come 
Half-sought, to buffet back these waves that would 
Wash out the individual estimate 
In general, blind, emotive, judgmentless 
143 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Alleged community. Now must I weigh 
As ne'er before the meaning of my mind. 

For I have from the first found tendency 
In all my verse toward individualism 
In a new manner. And 't were pertinent 
To my art-form were mine art-judgment quite 
Apart from critical tradition, sure 
Of self-criteria which yet should not be 
Eccentric nor beyond most views of men 
Unbalanced from an average estimate. 
1 have thresh'd o'er and o'er within my brain 
Suggestions of insanity, have sought 
A thousand times discern incipient marks 
Of my diseased departure from the sense 
Of most of the cultured ; ay, when differing 
In personal opinion have I sought 
More keenly than best critic of them all 
So to detect opinion which might show 
No reasonable warrant, as to catch 
My judgment obviously wanton ; still 
Have by the skepticism but been led 
Further along the same criterial paths 
To more elaborately determinate 
144 



BROWNING 

Uncompromising non-conformity. 
Though, as it may be, I, regretting still 
Miscomprehension, have (as all men must) 
In some sort stultified my judgment, yearn'd 
For common ground ; portray 'd — scarce by intent 
Deliberately acknowledged — in the speech 
And art-form of their pseudo-classic cult 
A characterization never quite 
The truth I 'd make it in a genuine art. 
Still, despite such scarce-conscious tendency 
To blur distinctions, seek communicancy 
And sanity at all cost, stand I sane 
In my firm non-conformity ; and would 
Deprecate too much comprehension, plead 
Mistake of fact in those who honestly 
Now are my flatterers and fancy fate 
Mixes men's spirits to absorbency 
Of personal irreducible self-poise. 
Nay, it is ' utterly determinate 
* This world of mine and thine ' — 1 catch myself 
Quoting my critics : they who fancied mine 
The mysticism ! Let me calmly face 
The paradox which leads me to maintain 
The very phrases of the enemy 
145 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Over against the championing of friends. 
The paradox : How can determinism 
Of feature, universalism still 
Of purport, best be found in monologue 
(As this my monologue) of personal truth ? 
How avoid, on the one hand emptiness 
Of mystical inconsequence — a speech 
Of sentimental egotism without 
A world shown autovital ; on the other 
The piecemeal profitless rehearsal of 
My place and thine as to some chronicler 
Such acts appear ? Lo ! for the first were such, 
Based in immediate sensibility 
Lawless and orderless of any soul's, 
As these my new-made sycophants suppose 
They prove of me, a sheer community 
Sans dignified distinctiveness of person 
In ultimate judgment ; and the second were 
The classic dialogue or pluralogue 
Which, based in some supposed eternity 
Of ordering, dramatic poet's-truth. 
Tells no self -judgment, neither mine nor thine ; 
Unions no self-responsibility ; 
Presents, depicts, permits speak each a part 
146 



BROWNING 

The puppets of the scene — in no way mine 
Nor any person's ? — Let my monologue 
Dialogue-wise dramatically prove 
Its own supremacy in yielding place 
Subordinate to just their give and take. 
For, while I live, will yet my verses prove 
Their fresh sincerity. When I am not, 
Shall men arise to crush them ; and there be 
No comprehender who can say : 'T is truth. 
One shall arise, haply, obscure of name 
But cogent, facile, who shall say of me. 
With no one to dispute, what now no man 
Would dare maintain. Let me now answer him ! 

And he shall say : ' 'T were sheer vulgarity 
' Of personal opinion. This his speech 

* Of monstrous-mouth 'd soliloquy but sets 
' World as he sees it, as he would it were 

* Or were not ; ay, characterizes all 

* By blindest passionate unestimate, 

' Nowise by ordering of art's cosmic scheme. 

* His were a poetry of barbarism, 
'Wanting establish'd canon, wanting art's 
' True objectivity, true beauty-speech 

147 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

* Of reasoning humanity. How call 

' Such primitive, ay, protoplasmic rant — 
' Guiltless of symmetry, propriety 

* And absolute proportion — poetism 

' Of modern meaning ? Rather is the world 

* Of modern meaning but afifirming more 

* And more art's classic preestablishment 
' Of real ideals, of eternal forms 

' Whereto our acts are moulded ! ' How shall 1 
Fully consider, entertain and test 
This condemnation ; who would yet condemn 
Myself for overdose conformity 
To just those unideal abstract terms 
Of outworn classicism he 'd uphold ? 

For in my first flash of self-sensate power 
I spoke, if youthfully, yet manly too 
My self forth in a person, thought and speech, 
Toward this Pauline, toward that Sordello ; still 
Dramatic only by objective force 
Of my world-unioning in point of view 
Adaptive, recreative of the truth 
Call'd David's, Paracelsus' : now mine own. 
Thus far a fair beginning in a form 
148 



BROWNING 

Not altogether novel, none the less 
Rational, genuine, believed in : my 
Speech in so far as I were merely self 
The lover, the narrator ; else my speech 
As I were David, Paracelsus. But 
Soon came the tempting of convention, soon 
The yielding to the outworn classicism 
Of playwright dialogue, the give and take 
Of puppet-persons, plausibly the speech 
Of powers not mine own which make for good 
Or evil sans responsibility 
Of mine for making every mouth speak truth. 
Such were the fallacy : an order'd scheme 
Beyond the poet's authorship ; a world 
Realistical imposed as from without 
On a mere chronicler : the gross mistake 
Of all mere classicism — general law 
The scapegoat for the puppets' fallings-short ! 
Such were my Strafford, Luria, my Blot, ay, 
In the 'Scutcheon, Druses, Victor and King Charles ; 
Puppet-plays : if not perfect of their kind 
(Not mine such technic), 'twas because I felt 
Fallacy : — I, the author, clean escaped 
From authorship ; my art alleged some world's ! 
149 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

And from the first the critics took to task 
My private personal self -poise ; alleged 
Even my forthright drama still too germane 
To individual bias ; branded those 
My people of their pseudo-classic cult, 
My Strafford, Tresham, Luria — but me ; 

* Mere puppets ' (how all tongues cleave to that word ! ) 
Solely because too little puppet-like, 

Too self-contaminate ! — Too much mine own, 
Alive and genuine ! — And now the crowd 
Of sycophants, echoing critic-cry 
With counter-purport of approval, fawn, 
Flatter foj my supposed escape at last 
From * objectivity ' ; ' pure sentiment 

* Of soul's immediate mysticism ' express'd 
In ' allegory of my moods and aims ', 

* Their ' moods and aims by being conceived so vague 
As to fit none. Wherefore I stand appraised 

For an alleged yet rightly unperform'd 

* Subjectivism ' ; and condemn myself 
Scarce for excessive objectivity 

As truth defines it, but for too close clutch 
Of the classic outward act, the puppet-speech 
Supposed not still mine own : the universal 
150 



BROWNING 

Not individual. So to the claim 
Of him I parley with I say at last : 

* Mine were too much the mere conformity 
' To general abstract conservatism 

* Of cultural tradition : losing thus 
' Art's genuine objectivity of self 

* Expressive through each puppet-circumstance, 
' Determinate but universal too. 

* If the first crude essay, the youthful whim, 

* Were too much lover, not enough Pauline ; 
' Narrator, scarce Sordello ; yet the truth 

* Lies in development toward surer speech 

* Like David's, Paracelsus' : now mine own 

' As their truth should be, would be, were they now 

* Citizens of my century in time 

' Contemporaneous at soul with us. 

' Which in a sort they were ; my ought-to-be 

* (Ultimate standard of all truth in art) 

* But an implied development through theirs. 
' So, to your worn-out classicism, the cult 

' Of chronicle, of puppet plausibly 

' Speaking his law-taught part, accusing fate 

* Else calling on the gods ; never at soul 

* Protagonizing : "I, responsible, 

151 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

•* Am fate, the gods; my world of circumstances 

" Is mine alone, and mine alone the chance 

" To right it, comprehend it and explain 

" Before all men a world intelligible 

" Not extra-orderly, but through and through 

" Self-comprehensive " : such is my reply : 

* Sir, misinterpret not my first attempts 

* Too little worldly-wise to self-explain 

' A circumstance not worthy a grown soul ; 

' Nor set for standard of my full-grown art 

' A pseudo-classicism never quite 

' Self-felt, germane ; so not my world at all, 

' Nor any's. But accept for best at last 

' These new ; now press-prepared, else waxing quick 

* Beneath my pen, fledging from out my brain, 

* To stand or fall with me ; my soul's-own world, 

* As utmost apprehension sets it right, 
' In circumstance and scenery to suit 

* Great situations of imagining — 

* Proportion'd, symphonied and symmetrized 

* By self-poise, universal, intricate 
' Yet only thereby total, infinitely 

* A self-sustaining, autovital art — 

' My truliest life : my Guido, Andrea, 
152 



BROWNING 

* Caliban, John, Giuseppi, and the Pope, 

* Lippo, Pompilia, and Balaustion ! ' 

Who shall have set world forth as I shall speak it, 
My world, a world by being so worldly-mine ? 
No shrinkage to an insignificant 
Mere sentimental maundering to catch 
The silly sycophants ; no cowardly 
Cord-twitching that the marionettes may dance 
Nor show the showman — him who made them so ! 
Who shall be stronger, still must ease his strength 
As I, in speaking self forth in the speech 
Of great souls, great by self-poised circumstance, 
Not blindly passion-warp'd, but more and more 
Personal, comprehensive of world-life ! 



153 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Now the swift sun in heaven wins day by day 

A loftier light ; earth in her laboring now 

Increaseth hourly ; and all things seem 

To breathe in strenuousness of taking on 

New burden, new responsibility 

By very virtue of aspiring lift 

And spring of the year : that rest is far from all : 

That yearning after dreams is a dead thing. 

Yea, such were life, to wax and be inform'd 

Of manifold new meaning constantly, 

And only so to understand content. 

Lo ! what containment, what satiety, 

What organ'd equipoise, what peace preserved 

In high endeavor endlessly renew'd ! 

I have endeavor'd ; but have not known peace. 

I have had peace in purpose, hence have miss'd 

it. 
I have endeavor'd autumnwise to be 
A winter of some statued mould and form 
By outworn dignity, by antique pose 
False to a modern mission. — Let me be 
Mobile as May-world ; myriad, manifold 
154 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

As blades and blossoms. Let me weigh now well 
The modern meaning. Let me learn my soul. 

It is the old, old word : this, * Know Thyself ' ; 
Stale as their Greek confusion of that self 
With ' me ' or ' thee '. And I have feign *d some Greek, 
Impersonated some atomic mould 
Of private purpose ; whilst my social worldhood 
Was yet not of me ; in the strife of things 
Been soul-impassible, been stoic-strong 
By cowardly evasion ; else have been 
But deprecator, ay, conservative 
Of truths whose needed conservation proved 
Their incompatibility with now. 
Their falsity as I have sought them. Yet 
My self, my person now must be the world 
Of modern implication, a self-world, 
Yea ; and a spring- world, as the soul of the year 
Is spring, not autumn nor earth's wintering. 
As the swift sun in heaven shall be my song 
Of liberal assumption, taking on me 
The burden as a blessing of all functions 
Fallen to the now-born ! Was the song of old — 
So simple-sane, so mystic-mythical ! — 

155 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

A cowardly avoidance of such creed 

And cult as yonder Sophocles might deem 

Crux of an uttermost modernity ? 

Were any work that seems so chaste, so far 

From tumult of an actuality, 

By any peradventure meant to prove 

Evasive of soul's daily intercourse 

And stint of due perplexity of path ? 

Could any art be whole by emptiness? 

Was not the world then old, the soul as young 

To grasp it, as are now my world, my soul ? 

Quick both, as pictured in this passing spring ? 

Never were beauty a mere contemplation, 
Nor God a reminiscence. If I fail 
To find in models of our modern art 
Criterion for satisfaction, if 
These creeds and formulse of churches stick 
In the throat, am I then left alone of the world 
A misplaced pagan, Phidias born too late ? 
No man were born misplaced, none sprung too late 
Out of the sun-lift and the lap of life 
Which bringeth forth in season every thing ! 
But with the still-increasing flux of earth 
156 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Evolve art and belief, develop form 
And function of our loftiest intellect 
In vastest grasp and passion. As we be 
Now a new world that stands not satisfied 
With God-beyond ; shall God-within-the-world 
Be any metaphor call'd Zeus indeed ? 
Shall God be of the world as I and these 
Though not divinity of them nor me ? 
Shall mine Empedocles absorb my soul 
To atheism and contempt, that art 
And God-creeds need renewing ? Rustum were 
The nobler puppet, who fought out his life 
To tragedy but not to cynicism. 
Oh, for some theme of modern-made idea - 
Which, matching spring in inborn novelty, 
Stands ever old, older than Zeus or men 
By being to-day divine, some world-device 
Of absolute soulship speaking in the mouth 
Of me, not Rustum nor Empedocles ! 
No Tyrian trader from the world shall hoard 
His splendor for salvation, no dismay 
Shall rant on flame-bursts, nor to element 
Resign the soul ! But something of a faith 
In understanding of a modern mood 
157 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Shall mean God most in complications sprung 

Of fluxion, spring-life and the lift of earth 

Inevitable. And my theme shall be 

Thus Greek, thus Phidian, .Cschylus anew 

By dealing in the plain, spontaneous, 

Self-language of the times, most pure, least foul 

With obsolete inheritance of myth's 

Equivocation ; meaning that I mean. 

Thus, then, shall all this frail agnostic cant 

Find autumn's place ; and if the creed be worn 

Be there renewal seeded of the fall. 

Let the new creed afford right meaning for 

The creed rejected, let the new art show 

Old myth subordinant, old metaphor 

But outworn fact : thus, the new fact full truth. 

Now the swift sun in heaven wins all my soul 
To spring-truth and soul-cycle of the year. 
In creed and art, no skeptical dismay 
More, nor withdrawal from the market-place 
And sphere of high contention faith with faith ! 
Here is earth's wonderful sweet market-place 
Of blossoming contention — 'would my soul 
Had learn'd herself so as a world of men ! 
158 



GORDON 

' I CAME, not to bring peace, but with a sword ! ' — 
Would tliat some power might bring Christ's 

sword to me ! 
His peace I look not for : and yet I came 
To bring these deserts peace and not a sword. 

How strangely turns our goodwill among men 

Into a hate and mockery of love — 

A hate without and mockery within 

These walls that I have built about men's homes ! 

How came I hither, if with sword to show 

Unco ward aspect, yet with peace at heart 

Intended unto all — at worst, a sword 

For those without my walls ! And now at last 

Here gaze I yearning toward that folk (which 

did 
So long forget past years) that they '11 but 

bring 
Power to rid me of my seeming friends 
Whom I mistrust more than mine enemies. 
Ay, treachery within and foes without 
This leaguer'd city augur some swift peace 
159 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Indeed unto my spirit. Though I seek 

No peace ; but, as the Master said, a sword. 

Not for myself indeed I seek that sword. 

My life were well-nigh ended, and well-spent 

In serving somewhat Christ and these poor crowds 

Of desert people. But that at the last 

My work should end, not in some forthright breach 

With those who will not love me nor my ways. 

But in the simulance of fellowship, 

A stab in the dark, a thrust, a sneer ; and all 

Is fallen of the fabric I had rear'd, 

Here among Christless folk, of Christian's faith : 

Fabric I fain had rear'd of man to man 

Open and honest if not brotherly — 

Such work to end as Judas ended once 

A nobler ! Let it be. The comfort comes 

In the meek parallel : my goal as His. 

So we start forth in singleness of soul 
To live straightforward, act and speak what best 
Is in us honest and above regard 
For what the world would have us speak and act 
Save as we judge best to be understood 
1 60 



GORDON 

Aright and meet men on men's common ground. 

But somewhere we must swerve. As when I came 

Declaring mine a sword, though peace at heart 

Was in me. — Was it not also in Christ ? 

Was Jesus' end by treachery because 

He scarce might wield a sword He would not wear 

While yet proclaiming warfare to the world ? 

Is mine impending doom this that it is, 

Even with the night that falleth now upon 

This turbulent city, but because I came 

No longer open with a sword at heart, 

Else peace upon my brow to match my soul ; 

And so destroy 'd the fabric of a faith 

In single purpose by my double deed ? 

Christ, I accept the desperate consequence 
As Thou acceptedst. For I too forswore 
My singleness of spirit. — Shall a man 
Do otherwise, die otherwise : than Thou ? 



i6i 



MOHAMMED AHMED 

A PROPHECY. Let the scribes write it down 
Even as I speak it. For it is my last : — 

God and the Prophet and myself I preach 
In provident succession. He who comes 
After me, Abduilahi here, shall preach 
God and the Prophet and myself the same, 
Who am the true Imam. And over me 
Shall Abduilahi rear the tomb which 1 
Have founded ; and shall make it as I now 
Declare in vision. For the length and breadth 
By cubits shall be equal ; but the height 
Somewhat exceeding, as the heavens are high 
Arch'd above earth's flat floor whereon we dwell. 
And in the side-walls be there entrances 
To signify my body still with men. 
Only, about the whole be built a yard 
And a well dug; for this were holy ground. 
Finally at the centre based upon 
Those inner arches shall be raised aloft 
First a pure prism of six crystalline sides 
To indicate my clarity of mind 
162 



MOHAMMED AHMED 

And so approach the perfect spherical 

Which heavenlike is my soul ; domed, yea, and gold. 

Such is the prophecy. And let the scribes 

Prepare it for decree publicly read 

As my last utterance from God amending 

Those earlier prophecies foregone of how 

Mine end were elsewhere. — Ah, but even at once 

Mine end approacheth. I would be alone, 

Well rid of earth, with AbduUahi here 

(Son of my spirit !) to confer on him. 

Whilst none shall witness, my firman from God. — 

Are we alone ? — Friend Abdullahi, thou 
Knowest how I have longtime sought release 
From this hypocrisy which we have made 
My pitiful substance. But 1 fear'd the fall, 
First, of myself — what have 1 now to fear 
Who feel the worst, the bitterness of death ? - 
Then, of this mighty empire we have rear'd 
In men's credulity. I leave to thee 
A dangerous and a bitter task ; and yet 
Somewise an easier. For myself have been, 
If push'd by thee yet still responsibly, 
The main impostor. Thou needst but adore 

163 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The dome thou buildest o'er me ; and the rest 
Is plain oppression, grateful to thy soul. 
1 pity, ay, thy people more than thee ! 
Temper the tyranny : 't will longer last 
Than if the superstition be too strain 'd. 

The superstition ! How, oft-whiles, 1 think 
Of those days when the inspiration seem'd, 
And was, from God ; then when at Abba Isle 
I taught in absolute humility 
Truths of my spirit, what I rightly knew 
Concerning manhood and the way of life 
(Oppression, Abdullahi, was my scorn !) 
Fit for my soul, and therefore fit that men 
Should hear it and be privileged to try 
Whether to choose their way of life like mine. 
God is so good, He gives the truth to each 
So perfectly adapted to the need. 
He makes it seem as though some truth for all 
Alike were vouchsafed : though such is not so, 
Mine Abdullahi. But it came to me 
As if my ministry (thus Moslem folk 
Are ever dreaming !) was, to every man 
The same, a revelation ; though forsooth 
164 



MOHAMMED AHMED 

The lowliest Dongolawi of them all 

Hath truth in some degree for him as true 

As for me mine. I know this plainly now. 

For, as death comes and feverish heat abates, 

Are the eyes open'd. — Whence, this woof of lies 

Which 1 have woven, prophecies and worse. 

If not in effort I have made that men 

Believe as I believe, whether or no 

Their circumstance and each intelligence 

Of sense and reason may condemn my creed 

Available for me but not for them ? 

For thus have I forsworn my privacy 

As theirs of final judgment each unique ; 

And thus deprived my faith of honesty. 

Whence, mine undue assumption.? mine, who 

preach 
Humility and abstinence, yet grasp 
A god's immunity from any law 
Save satisfaction of my pride and lust ? — 
God are we, Abdullahi ; but not gods ! 

Thou, Abdullahi, knowest even as 1 
Whereof we build our empire here on earth. 
Nor wilt thou dream I rave. But thou wilt pray 
165 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

With me that God be gracious, and my faults 
Be visited not on them who had faith 
When first I felt and taught the word of God — 
The woof of God, I say, though now false-warp'd 
From the fine fabric that my life had been ! 
I leave it, then, to thee, the awful task 
To save this people from the ire of God 
As 1 have roused it. Canst thou find a way ? 
Even the old hypocrisy ? 'T were best. 
We are too far in treachery to try 
New ways of singleness. The folk we fool 
Were leaderless, wert thou less false than 1. — 
[ Fear, save for them, shall now be flung far from 
me, 
Though worse for me may come than this of death ! 
Spare but the tyranny ; 't is all I ask. 
Bear no consideration for my soul. 
Absolve me from no sins of blasphemy 
By ruining this empire ! Rather burn'd 
I in hell-fire a thousand years and one 
Than earn heaven by apostasy of thine 
When earth depends still on the perfect fraud ! 
Therefore I tell thee that the sin is best. 
'T will save them from themselves lest they awake 
i66 



MOHAMMED AHMED 

To learn the great deception, and go mad ! 

For thee, like me, 't were late : our souls are lost. 

Call them to witness of my latter end. 



167 



TENNYSON 

Now in the eve and twilight of mine age 
I turn to see what stadia I have pass'd 
In the world's road, if any. And my year 
Hath pass'd and many seasons over me ; 
That winter now approacheth. But my path, 
Though beautiful in autumn retrospect, 
Shows not so long — despite the lengthening haze- 
As I in journeying along it deem'd. 
If a straight path, yet are there backward feet, 
'T would seem, and many turnings on the road, 
Wanderings awide and strange reluctances 
Of yearning memory : a fear, through all, 
Of these, those * other faces *, ' other minds ', 
Which now close in about me. Though the school 
Applaud and love, I, with mine old-age sight 
Of tendencies and meanings hitherto 
Unseen, can in nowise applaud my way. 
A way the blind, the halt, the backward turn'd 
Might travel for its smoothness which the feet 
Of me with many stumblings, much retread. 
Wrought to the road where men so oft before 
Had journey 'd; but no onway hewn among 
1 68 



TENNYSON 

The noble all-embracing lonelinesses 

Of earth-uplifting solitary thought. — 

I have been solitary to my shame : 

Though spoil'd with much laudation, yet alone 

In self and spirit, strange unto a world 

Which strain 'd beyond me ; and came back to rest 

Unto my bosom but for ease and sleep, 

Forgetful of day's onward dignities. 

Sweet were the uses of conservancy. 

Of backward-yearning and the requiem 

Which autumn yields the year. Sweet the smooth path 

Of verbal dalliance, wide simplicities : 

The cowardice which, Platonizing still. 

Apes the eternal verities outworn ! 

Life were not retrospect. Yet all my life 

Hath inwardly but been as retrospect. 

Now let my final retrospect absolve 

The blame ; mine old age be not — Tithonus \ 

For, lo ! my soul hath been as Tithonus', 

Not as Odysseus'. Let Odysseus' be 

My yearning now toward ocean without end. 

Ah, but a truce to antique imagery ; 
Peace, peace to the dead language ! Let my tongue 

169 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Speak plain, not mouth Lucretius ; find a speech 
Of modern manner, nor mistake mine own 
Bewilderment and latter pessimism — 
Echo of Latin atomist despair — 
For wise modernity ! Were Galahad 
Or Launcelot, that tale of Guinevere ; 
Were Arthur with his old companionship 
(Trite types whose generality would serve 
For almost any purpose, any proof : 
And hence are false to any in themselves !) 
Plain speech, an earnest prophecy of world 
Within me, truth-expression of the strong 
Whose beauty is by self-determinate grasp 
Of literal apprehension — in the flower 
Of the cranny, God and all ? Or were my richest. 
Most perfect, most elaborated piece 
Most a veil'd utterance, most overlaid 
With mystery: a dimness ? Yea, that I 
Did once speak plainly all the truest of me 
Is little wonderful : when memory, ah, 
Regret — with consolations obsolete. 
Suggestions of an heartening in faith 
Itself a mystery, itself most veil'd — 
Were all the stuff and splendor of that song ! 
170 



TENNYSON 

The rest were negligeable ; though well-made, 
Mere household saws, mere suave urbanities 
(Men still will praise : ' Those fair humanities ' ! ) 
Letter'd, polite, taught in the academe ; 
Not stuff of strength nor splendor of the soul. 
For I, I was not prophet of the times. — 
There was another, one whose verse but seem'd 
" Uncouth, that I despised it at my heart. 
Yet, how he moved on past the lagging throng 
In freedom and in grandeur of plain speech ! 
His very manner now is at my tongue 
As truth pleads in me to be up and heard ! 
Beyond him I divine some statelier verse 
(As yet unmade, if ever to be made ? ) 
Of splendid-surging insight, some new power 
(By God-abandonment) of finding godship 
In personal conscience of an unique world 
Wherein no man is instance of the rest : 
But each concludes by definition all : 
Plain speech become beauty by absoluteness ? 
'T were sole alternative to cynicism. 
T were autumn, no ; nor winter, nor the spring. 
Nor any season ; but the round of all 
Concentred, focus'd to the eternal year ! — 
171 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

His was a spring. Could some humility 

In me have hail'd in him my complement ! — 

With the fair, fine return of every autumn. 
Of autumn in its lingering retrospect 
When each reverted day reluctantly 
Leaveth itself behind, have I been moved 
Increasingly toward song : that now 1 sing 
For ultimate autumn my confessional. 
For something in the season aye hath been 
My special inspiration. I have sung 
If most-part of the springtime, summer's flood 
And wintry barrenness ; yet aye the ebb 
Of retrospection and of lingering 
Hath been my burden, message of my word. 
If melancholy loveliness I leave 
To those that are bewilder 'd with the world 
As 1 : dim richness as of Camelot 
Seeming to them Avilion's own vale 
(Avilion, may be, but not quick earth); 
Idalian Oenone, only dreams 
Of modern plasticism unalive — 
A mourning yet for antique faiths outworn, 
A living life but in the lost of things, 
172 



TENNYSON 

A Romanhood when Rome is not the world ! — 
I have call'd halt and turn'd but in my mire. 
I see some souls which leap out of this slough 
Of mean dismay : accepting all now proven 
Of unity, automatism, of each 
New subtler involution of one clay 
From nebula to poet ; yet insisting 
The nebulous material thus proven 
Pole but of spirit. Subtler doctrines still 
Evolve and involve from the lost belief : 
Involving no lost dignity to man 
Free of a maker : Somewhat self-made still ; 
Not myrmidon of nescience as I fear'd I 
I see some souls thus best conserving truth 
By ever journeying on truth's new way. — 
But I, I have no motion of mine own: 
Save if my motion be by retrogress, 
My mild despair be still some share of light 
Illumining reflectively the faith 
Whence future light shall spring and be renew'd : 
My movelessness (through all that was of strength) 
At last avow'd, proving my motion now. 
Yea, though I am not now such strength as in 
Old days bewail'd but earth and fear'd for heaven, 
173 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Such as I am, I am : knowing myself. 
So have I gather'd up all left behind 
Like to the wholeness of the onrolling year ; 
That there is no regret : but onwardness. 



174 



WYCKOFF 

Weeks, months, and years at laboring with these hands 
Of mine untrain'd to toil have well-nigh used 
Muscles and sinews to the manual work, 
Callous'd the skin, stiffen'd the horny grasp; 
Subdued frame, fingers, almost brain beside 
To fitness for the nerve-mechanical 
Brute task ; made brawn the measure of my might ; 
Man, physic-mass! — Experiment's success ? 
Well-nigh pure proxihood's reality? — 
Some way the day's fatigue, the listlessness 
Of unrewarded search (though scarce despair 
By any fear to starve), relaxing brawn 
Here as I stumble restward through the dusk, 
Indeed mere outcast of the unemploy'd, 
Areek with sweat, dinn'd with the city's roar. 
Unnerves tne tense-strung sinew, frees the brain 
Momently for the dubious questioning ; 
Confronts soul with the skepticism ; lays bare 
Depths of a void denial. Sole alone 
Halt I amid the throng where by the bridge 
Shadowy sweeps with sluggish sullenness 
The city's sink and sewer : I, of these 
I7S 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Millions of maul'd humanities, one soul — 

Despite soul's uttermost insistency 

At comradeship and merging to their mould — 

A solitary and a loneliness 

Doom'd as yon river to receive yet scarce 

Assimilate ; acknowledge all the stew 

And stink and crime, the sin ; assume their filth, 

Take tinge and city-substance (as these hands 

Harden to tint of turmoil) yet stream onward 

A solitary and a power alone 

By weakness, by incapability 

Of fixedness, adoption of the fact 

Of any other; but — a glimmering doubt — 

Sweep on and hold no permeant cognizance 

Of city, shadow and flare. Even so my soul 

Incapable of proxihood steals on ; 

Rouses and wakes, as with a lightless depth 

Of dismal fluxion, to the finite lore : 

'Not I, but thou, thou rank'd humanity 

' Of city-stricture and mechanic pain, 

' Suffering, pitiable ; not my soul 

' For any forced assumption of thy wrongs ! ' 

Weeks, months and years ! yet labor as I may 
176 



WYCKOFF 

Still miss I proxihood : experiment 

Fail'd of perfection ! — I, the flesh'd and eased 

In worldly circumstance, yet sensed and fill'd 

Of the physical sufferance of man-made-beast ; 

I, scientist, philosopher, wide known 

And widelier knowing, yet with ache and pang 

Of the pinch'd, impoverish'd, prevented souls 

Of mass'd humanity, by sympathy 

Tortured, o'erwhelm'd ; conceiving passionately 

A mission, duty to be done for these; 

Desiring so, and reasoning to attain 

More intimate insight of men's distress 

The abler to make proselyte the world 

To ways of reparation : did put off 

(Even as yon river, swirl'd to tortured pool, 

Lamps, in default of motion, mirror-lights) 

All circumstance of comfort and mine ease 

Laboring brute-like with the herd. — Saith not 

Christ, ' Lift the stone and ye shall find me ' ? — 

So 
Sought I to lift and stir the stone, thereby 
Christlike for vicar to assume the soul 
(Even as yon whirlpool by the mock-lamp'd lights) 
Of man-made-brute ; to raise by love man's least. 
177 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Weeks, months and years : and still the soul-made- 
brute-like 
(Better or worse than brute, it matters not) 
Of mankind mass'd and mired is by no means 
Mine ; nor the proxihood : experiment 
Daily more futile, daily more remote 
From pure adoption, adequate insight 
Of the menial misery. At this twilight hour 
Lonely along dull-glimmering curbs I go 
Half-fed, unkempt, craving the primal curse 
Of labor, longing but the natural right 
To toil : an outcast of the unemploy'd ! 
Yet, in man's uttermost distress'd estate. 
No mere man-scum : at stand here by the brink 
No city: river-like sensitive indeed 
To loneliness, to love forlornness means ! 
Failure foredoom'd ! And in this hour I feel 
Fatuity of any vicarage. 
Insight, nay sympathy: and am at heart 
Love's contradiction, deeming futile all 
Approximation and all guardianship. 
Can 1, incapable of bosoming 
Feature or fashion of the souls 1 'd ape 
(As lights flare but from surface of yon stream), 
178 



WYCKOFF 

Blind to oblivion of mine old estate 

Which was mine and remains — but should not 

so — 
A standard fix'd for strain'd comparison 
Warping the actualization, thwarting real 
Appreciation (as yon river hoards 
High mountain-outlook) of the prison pain, 
The absoluteness of this cursed estate 
(City but city and no gloried gorge) — 
So false (and no criterion obtains 
For fault's correction) to this state assumed: 
Can I, in ignorance of the true distress 
(Bound to the ignorance by mountain-birth), 
In error at diagnosis of disease 
Pander prescription, seek make proselyte 
World to a reparation ; when redress 
Aims at an end uncognizable, wills 
Cure for complaint (this city stands unproved 
By gleam nor scum) no postulate shall prove ? 
Ay, grant their case be none so desperate 
As sympathy conceived (the cataract's 
Too crude anticipation), grant how brute 
Being brute (if brute be brutish plausibly) 
Could scarce appreciate the solitude, 
179 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Nor man-mere-brute with mine intensity 

(This stagnant city with this stream's strain'd 

sweep) 
Confront forlornness and feel fmitude ! 
It boots not, scarce affects fatuity 
Of proxihood and pure experiment. 
Yield the contention ; can I possibly 
Acquire precise criterion the more 
Through recognizing how criterion 
Varies, a fluxion ; mine expectancy 
Of solitude and fmiteness, apart 
From any solitude and fmiteness 
The solitary and the finitude 
Could comprehend nor yet belie their name ? — 
City see city seen from mountain-side ? 
Absurdity ! Yet city stands none less 
Beyond (beneath, above, indifferent which) 
All possibility of stream's insight 
Of city-scum, of city-flare as fix'd 
And irremediable, strictured. So 
Strictured and irremediable, fix'd 
Flows lone yon river, lone between brick'd banks! - 
Ay, what though case be none so desperate ? 
'T is yet the death-disease, most desperate-like 
1 80 



WYCKOFF 

Of man's society ; needs antidote 
None less, though health be palpably at fault 
In pitying with sheer healthiness' recoil 
(As mountain-stream froth'd for the sewer's fear) 
Fever that for the victim's feverishness 
Seems scarce self-pitiable at the worst. 
Craves health or illness febrifuge none less 
(Street's putrefaction, purifying still) 
To minister, to mouth till ease obtain. 
For by default of worse disease, what worse 
Extremity can be for health-redress ? 
Miserable, or scarce miserable so much 
As by my preconceived impulsive plot, 
Failure none less ; no possibility 
Of mine appreciation, real insight 
By Christ-assumption : nor no antidote. 
No mission and no duty through the world ! 
Nay, yielding some least feasibility 
That sweating, toiling ; even the memory weak 
Of one-time independence and mine ease 
(Yon black, oblivious of the torrent-spume) ; 
All expectation of triumphant burst 
(Anticipant gravitation seaward) wide 
Abroad in proselyting of the earth ; 
i8i 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

All sense of difference in real degree 

'Twixt mine, my soul promoting proxihood 

For enterprise of ethical import 

And this my mean assumed estate : destroy'd 

(Source both and ocean-solace damm'd) ; at last 

I were by stultification in all sort 

Reduced to just the appropriate preconceived 

Or ill-conceived brute proletariat : — 

Where then the proof's experiment (what stream 

For city's imaging nor purge ?) ; wherein 

Were I other than him I seem and were, 

No-Christ but Pharisee, the actual crude 

Muscle-mass (stagnant pool, miasmic, stench'd 

As any) worst in want of aid indeed ; 

No purge, nor comfort, vicar, nor no God ; 

But just that man, that man-made-brute whose city 

Loses, by gaining me, all hope through me 

Of purification. — By profoundest proof 

Of perfect proxihood, no proof at all. 

No proxihood, no vicarage. — 

I fail, then. 
Avow the failure : sheer experiment 
But truth-annihilation in so far 
As actual approximation 's gain'd. 
182 



WYCKOFF 

And with the plausible experiment 

Goes worth of any insight, power assumed 

Of adequate information imaging 

In my fact any other. For my fact 

Is stream and shall be stream, swirl'd ne'er so 

strait 
Through city's boundaries. And all attempt 
By eddy, whirlpool to assimilate 
Shows but a self-denial, self-distraught 
Admission of the ultimate nothingness. 
Nescience, non-insight, non-criterion, 
Denial of all duty, right and law, 
Abandonment of world-community 
For pure exclusion'd self-identifying, 
Indifferent alive or dead. And lest 
The proxihood (pool clogg'd and choked to the brim) 
Get hold on me ; and my Gethsemane 
Mark end at last of every high resolve 
In sheer subdual to the murk I 'd mould : 
Be one resolve, last, best a man may make — 
True to the primal self-identity 
Of finite individual lapsingness, 
The nescience and the lawless entity, 
The lovelessness, the helplessness : one step, 
183 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

One cast of body : and this life's soul-death 
Is done ! Firmly I fling: and shall be done ! — 

One stark recoil ! — Done ? Can this life-in-death 
Have value, that the dismal death in the stream 
Should prompt revolt, create the new resolve 
By ultimate reaction, absolute 
Soul-estimation of the world ? What though 
This body, wash'd and rotting in the tide 
Disintegrate but toward and through new life, 
Chemic, bacterial, vegetative, man's 
Anew, or not man's, piecemeal, yet eterne 
By process ? What though this self-conscious soul 
Cease not, but swoon in the throes with ne'er an end. 
Being self-criterion of endurance (even 
As yon stream, being but stream, was yet some snow, 
Shall be some ocean ; though, for stream as stream. 
Stream still unendingly) ? What though being-done, 
By science or philosophy alike. 
Stands proved impossible inanity ? 
'T is yet this self-endurance, each least jot 
Of multiple manifold redundancy, 
The wide determinism interminable 
Whose each new tittle — stone uplift and stirr'd — 

184 



WYCKOFF 

Has absolute value and soul-vicarage. 

Ay, each least finite contrast (the swept stream 

Incapable of cityship, yon town 

Self-imperturbable to seawardness) 

Holding at heart, subtending inmost-wise 

An ultimate union through reality, 

Value, omniscience infinitely whole 

By being but irremediably distinct 

(Stream but by city-contradiction ; town 

By being no-stream) still self-identified 

Each in and through all others totally. 

Experiment's success ? — Experiment 
Was absolute, perfected, in and through 
Each failure of the proxihood; this soul. 
Not by inanity of mutual merge, 
Purity of adoption self-denied, 
But by development new day by day 
Of intimate contrast, rich complexity 
Of mine impossibility but through 
Distinction, whence — not self-abandoning 
All nature, but of absolute insight 
(As they through me, I through the soul of them) 
Original and natural — at last 
185 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Physician, Ciirist-creator from the first. — 
Nescience by ultimate delusiveness ? 
Nay, but by mediate delusiveness 
(And mediation, imaging, yon flare 
In the whirlpool, stands final delusion save 
Delusion-recognized, so absolute truth) 
Distinctively the self-world-conscience shows 
Truth unto truth, and no bewilderment. 
Discouragement ? — This militant world-soul 
Of mine (yon river ceaselessly at sweep) 
But by ambition endlessly to learn 
More intimately, more complexly proved 
The richness and the sociology 
Of soul-original transcendent sight, 
Stands soul at all : and confident by doubt, 
Constant assured by utmost skepticism, 
Proves true the proxihood, experiment's 
Success : and shall make proselyte my world ! 
I, toiler best by best philosophy : 
Vicar, Christ-guardian by love-unioning 
In soul-experiment, stirring stones all 
(Proving the stone self-stirr'd by world-whole stir) : 
Scarce by mere stiffening of this callous'd palm. 
Scarce by endeavor to be brute — (what brute ?) — 
1 86 



WYCKOFF 

But by the duty, mission, right conceived 
Of work's infinity in serving so 
Conscience, omniscience, God-society ! 

Such, for triumphant strength of twilight doubt 
Ultimate, doubt-defeating. — The strong noon 
Shall prove again experiment's despair. 



1S7 



NANSEN 

' Mid ice and night onward and onward : ice, 

Night unresisted heaving on and on 

Though motiveless yet mightily my life 

In passion of the pack ; pressing on, on 

From nought through nought : no progress : passage 

proved 
Prison ; persistence, powerlessness : or Pole 
Or no Pole, equal impotence ! — In patience 
My soul sees, even in impotence, fulfiU'd 
The prophecy that built, equipp'd, launch'd forth 
Her foresight. Yea ; this power, this thrust and stress 
At bend and burst broad, loud below in the bleak, 
My heart holds ; comprehends ; conclusively 
Bursts beyond, thrusts down, down and bounds above 
In freedom of buoyancy. My ship, my soul 
Are motive ; are sun and strength beyond aught here ! 

Passion and patience of the universe, 
Doom'd to this dead, eternal ice and night ! 
From nought through nought and nowhere any end ; 
No bourne to passage, strength to patience none ; 
Motive to life nor any life save death : 

1 88 



NANSEN 

Moon, and these myriad stars moon-dead to-be ! — 
Yet : what of This that knows, that wills an end, 
This God-l-Am : for whom, through whom, in whom 
Alone are ice and night and anything : 
This strength-of-suffering, power of life-through-death ; 
Prophet, transcendence of the darkness here ? 
Something, through uttermost of ice and night, 
Will that I question fact ; unfelt before 
Somewhat essential beyond ice or night 
Questions the doom ; demands, if there be life 
In me and through me, how may death persist, 
Ice and night so entomb earth's truth to-be ? 
World ceases not though I cease or not cease ! 
What of world's soul that comprehends ; concludes 
Together nought with nought ; proves passage, bourne ; 
Chaos yet cosmos, sentient-systeming : 
Moon-dearth but sensible by strength of sun ; 
Strength endless, being criterion of end ? 
What of the Self to science' selflessness : 
Spirit to substance of world's ice and night? — 
Hegel or Kelvin ? Kant with Christ or — what ? — 
Lo ! in this bitterly blank night, the breeze 
Blistering this breast to bleak frigidity ; 
Here above bellowing ice-blocks, stark aloft 

189 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

At masthead 'mid these thorn'd tormenting stars, 

This vinegar, this mockery of moon : 

Must I alone this hour sweat through this passion 

Of intellectual agony made mine ; 

Wrestle, resolve (so crucified my soul 

Vicar for this dumb-arctic eloquence) 

World's problem of perpetuance, of power : 

In truth's name how an universe can be ! — 

I, so be intellect for deaf and dead, 

Savior for snows that scarce can think or speak, 

Christ for the ice and night : to prove for these 

Philosophy or science, faith or fact : — 

Conclusion foregone that I speak as Christ 

Speaking their self best in this self of mine. 

Speaking myself best in the self of these : 

By sympathy a faith — not selfless fact : 

An intellectual-conscience, scarce machine ! 

Yet, it is new, this union ; till this hour 
Unrealized ; till this night precluded quite 
By full acceptance of the selfless fact, 
Sheer science : Kelvin, Huxley ! — Christ or Kant 
Left out of count now, first the formal, fair 
Rehearsal of the fact ! — 
190 



NANSEN 

To clutch a shroud ; 
Shake with the strong wind streaming ; ramp and rock 
With sufferance of the vessel shock'd ; upheaved 
With every blasting of the bleak below. 
*T is to be fact for facts ; be buffeted 
As block beats block ; be wail'd-on by the wind. 
Above, the boreal auroras ; broad 
Beyond, about, below, the bleak, blown packs 
Sunless as senseless. To be one of these. 
Ay : and how comes it to be one of these ? 
Review the history, sum up the law 
Of evolution, nebula to now : 
The progress such and such ; geogeny, 
Biogeny, psychogeny ; the chain 
From nebula to now : and every new 
Born out of old. And flesh, this organ'd mass 
Nerved, sinew'd draws descent direct, distinct 
From nebula ; is substance as the stars. 
Substance as ice and night : and one with these. 
Ay, though be ice, night, moon, but equally 
With sunshine, quickening vapor metaphor 
For death or life : their real identity 
Nor death nor life, but force, fate : yet are these — 
The less, the more — equal inanity 

191 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of fact's necessity : ' Self ', one of these ; 

Phenomenon of nerve-phenomena, 

Some sheer spontaneous sentience of a ' world * 

Was not, nor shall be : actual world none less. 

Indifferent, independent, nerve or nought : 

Intelligence or non-intelligence 

Indifferent to existence of the fact. 

Ay, this 'world-overweighting ' of the brain, 

This ' passionate, transcendent ponderance 

' Of soul ', this critical compendiousness 
Of * mind ' o'er matter, ' Christhood ', ' vicarage ', 
This ' saviorship of union'd intellect 

* Its agonied redemption ', were but beats 
Of the ganglion, nerve-tissued blow on blow. 
Shaking and surging of the plasmic cells 
At sweat and ramp and rage of bursting blood ; 
This ' God-I-Am ' some subtlest ice or night 
Blow for blow, burst for burst the same in sort 
As bellowing ice-pack and this boreal blast : 
Nerve, native as the nebula : no-soul ! 
Such are the facts to test and find them true ; 
No link disjuncted : perfect in the proof. 
And, for the logic of all law is such 
Must man with world come to the doom at last — 
192 



NANSEN 

Kelvin's and Huxley's — with the spent machine : 

With tendence moonward from the might of stars : 

Space-dissipation of world's energy 

To ice and night, no meaning. From the first 

Even this surge from nebula to now 

Nought but a space-dissemination, loss 

Of energy potential kinetized 

Toward equilibrium : equilibrium 

But nothingness, no force, non-end inane : 

Moon, nought save shown in sloth of swooning 

sun. 
And if, in such dissemination, ' soul ' 
(Nice nerve- vibration) over and beyond 
The grosser substance chemical gain growth 
And power organic over and beyond 
The less-organic ; stands the law the same : 
Such and such from the nebula to now 
Mere evolution of the nerve from vague 
Chaos through energy kinetic, sun 
And star and sphere on sphere, through molten 

mass, 
Rock-metal, vegetation, sinew'd flesh 
To man's brain: and from now back, back to night, 
Cold crystalline benumbing up of nerve 
193 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

In cosmical pulsation : now from man 
Back to chill'd coalescence organless, 
Lifeless conglomeration : ice and night ! — 
Ha ! the stars stab; the bellowing below 
Mocks to the marrow ! Unto ice and night 
Dedicate nerve's destruction! Now, to-night 
(What of the years of the world if years yield 

nought ? ) 
Now, to-night end all; headlong to the doom 
Dash on the blank pack's bosom : far below 
Beat brain out: end the agony! In name 
Of Kelvin, Huxley, now, to-night 1 leap: 
Anticipate, make mine the doom of all ! — 

Mine? Mine the doom of all ! I hesitate; 
Hold breath ; breathe deep this agony of air : 
Make it my blood and feel it mine! I am! 
Life is what means it to be one of these ! — 
Alive, I-am; nebula, nerve or night: 
Necessitating future still as past 
More and more, past as future, each in each I 
World ceases not: nor I cease. World I am! — 
And it is new, this union: yet by will 
To end all proved, made perfect endlessly 
194 



NANSEN 

In intellectual action: Christ with Kant! — 
Faith for the facts ! Feel faith and find fact truth ! 

This logic of life-origin, this law 

Of link'd necessity ? Can link by link 

Interminably link'd explain one life ? 

Mere mutuality, one molecule 

Save as the mutual mean identity : 

My life, or molecule, an union'd world ? 

Ay ; in such sort : if just this self of me — 

God-mechanician to their made machine, 

Else unmechanic mere nonentity ! — 

Hypothesized yet unexplain'd remain 

(Hardly residuum, scarce for fact beyond) 

Still for true source, being synthesis, of these, 

Conscience and explanation, linkage, law — 

(Sunlike to shrinkage of moon soulless else ! ) — 

Not cause, yet all-causation ; through and through 

Immanence and intelligence of all 

Else lawless, linkless, unionless, inane ; 

Self-ideality of each-through-each ; 

Each for itself forselfness even as I, 

Identified in me as selfhood all : 

The molecule in man, man-molecule, 

195 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Native reality : and only so 
Real at all, molecule or man, for me : 
Past, future, none less instant, self for self, 
Real union, sentience each ; though yet for me 
Polar, unmeaning save as union'd now. 
Ay ; that 1 am, I am : all else in me 
(As I in them, through them, by mutual proof - 
How else, conceived empirics-error, save 
World's self-assertion, countervail'd to mine, 
In so far forth show Self neutrality ?) 
Through me make mutuality of self 
Distinct, determinate, dividual 
Yet individual universally. 
All that I am, 1 am : this world of mine ; 
This universe : alive by saviorship, 
(Monad or motive) Christhood-vicarage ! 
Development proved world-dissipation proves 
By world-retort a false criterion, 
Half-standard contradictory : proves worth 
Of absolute process, progress regressive 
In pure polarity self-reconciled 
Evolving, mind from matter, most from least. 
Law, from the nucleus to now, but time 
Of self's maturing : ever to mature : 
196 



NANSEN 

Even in the space-dissemination, time's 
Ingathering of momentum ; human mind 
O'er mental nebula progressive still 
In mutual internality of lore 
Even as o'er physical man the molecule 
Nebular stood, still stands preeminent 
In property material of force 
Extern, displacement substantive ; alike 
Materio-mental, least and most : one Soul 
Erst nebular, now nebular-humane ; 
Ubiquitous, being all-self spatialized ; 
Eternal, being all-temporality : 
Mine erst, mine now, mine still eternal-wise ; 
By perpetuity through passingness 
(This perfectness of process) nebula, yea, 
To now, yet now by being but nebular 
(Past and to-come but poles of permanence) : 
Eternally my universe humane ! — 
Is it, world-mutuality may end ? 
Yet mutual how, save well aware through each, 
Alive each molecule — that may not end, 
Being each for self criterion of end. 
World-mutuality in self alone ? — 
Ice and night, ' ice ' and ' night ' (man's metaphor 
197 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

For end-unmeaning, dead) but humanly ; 
Ice yet for ice, night yet for night, humane 
In selfhood nebular-molecular : 
Moon yet for moon, as sun for sun, one world — 
(Transcending metaphor) each molecule ! — 
Union'd, processional unendingly — 
Soul not above, beyond ; but immanent 
Self-reference, intelligence through all ! 

Lo ! for behalf of such as scarce may speak, 
Lo ! for life's ice and night, life laughs at loss : 
Takes truth from lightning of the blank below : 
Spurns space-dissemination : in despite 
Turns law to law's impassion'd intellect 
Proved in performance of my ship, my soul 
Their prophecy, foresighted impotence ! 
Lo I proved in the patience under pressure, power 
Of passive Pole-persistency (extreme 
Passion of logic push'd to point), behold 
Motived preeminence of manhood-plan 
O'er potency less mental ; o'er the bleak 
Ice and night I for vicar proving world 
Processive, though pulsation 'd : I by proof 
Lifting the lost to life's intelligence ; 
198 



NANSEN 

Fact-science to philosophy by faith. 
What of the equilibrium, inane 
Frosting of nerve to nothingness ? By pace 
Equal, if opposite, above, beyond 
The physical degeneration steps 
The ' psychic ' subtlety : nor moon nor star 
Shows soul-futurity, save star or moon 
In spirit equal-born ! — And 1 north, north 
Push, overpower, soul-overweight their world 
Of space-passivity ; their extreme verge 
Of sphere yet union'd Pole through Zone, yet proved 
Axial, self-orbited — being but motived more 
Pass on the lamp of light, cramp boundaries, 
Burst and break down the barriers (limit proved 
Barrier but by bursting) ; limitless 
Lead on the more than human mind to-come 
In conquest of physic's frigidity : 
More and more conquer'd, spurn'd beyond, the more 
Frosted in deadness of new ice and night. — 
Ay ; and in conquest more and more shall world 
(Or human or some supra-human nerve. 
Some more than nerve) by reconciling more 
More comprehend, include and lift to light 
The 'deadness ' and the * darkness ' : more and more 
199 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Shall time to-come, immanent now, make now 

An explanation and intelligence 

By selfhood. — As my selfhood, savior now 

Springs forth in fire abroad, auroral, vast 

From stiffening of this Christhood on the cross 

Stark aloft ! From the vicarage complete 

(Torment of stars or mockery of moon : 

This intellectual agony made mine) ; 

Eternal principle of every end — 

Christ for the ice and night, redeeming these ! — 

For whom alone meaning or end may be : 

World-saviorship that shall not end ! — 

I rave ? 
Drunk with the drench of drouth, of death ? 1 

freeze ? — 
Ha ! the skies scoff ! I still am doom'd in dream : 
Man, with the dead-eternal ice and night. 



200 



DREYFUS 

Nay, I make no revolt ; accept the doom ; 

Drag on in desolate, deliberate death 

The life-imprisonment. No petulance, 

No desperation ; only an intent 

To realize utterly this miserable 

Incarceration, learn appreciate 

The bondage ; leave behind me here at death 

The written testimony, manuscript 

Of the judgeless punishment; that world may know 

As I know, once for all, so shudder at. 

Assimilate and once for all forswear 

(As I in pure appreciation rise. 

In and through prisoning, beyond these bars 

To absolute freedom of contemplating) 

This horrible denial, vital void. 

I have come through the whirlwind and am calm, 
Calm as these stones and unremitting chains : 
Shall * keep calm for the purpose to speak truth'. 
I make no plaint : even mine innocence 
Absolute of the charge preferr'd upon me 
Seems scarce to irritate, exasperate 

201 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Since the first bitterness of fierce turmoil, 

Nor lure to loss of sanity. 1 but 

Feel the more fully, may be, more abhor 

The manner of my condemnation. Were I 

But guilty as I now am innocent 

Were uttermost abhorrence mine the same 

As justly and as innocently 'gainst 

Their absolute non-justice, disregard 

Of any innocence or guilt of mine. 

Though for the sake of this my narrative 

Its prima facie evidence of truth, 

Good faith, trustworthiness, I still am glad, 

Take pride in innocence ; yet aggravate 

My scorn, my self-transcendence of the doom 

No whit because they work'd worse than they knew. 

I Ml not suppose they thought me innocent : 

The imputation of malignancy 

Is supererogatory. I maintain 

But that mine innocence nor guilt at all 

Bore weight in the matter, influenced the course 

Of condemnation in the least degree. 

There lies the blame, the worse than blackest blot 

My soul can well conceive. On them I lay 

Bloodguiltiness of total disregard 

202 



DREYFUS 

For right nor wrong ; pursuance right or wron^ 
Of one hypothesized and prejudiced 
Supposed essential policy : the case 
Nowise in question ; the one dogma, all. 

First, can prejudgment of one policy 
To be pursued, regardless for whate'er 
Of new may yet eventuate, constitute 
By force of supreme faith its final right 
In the conscience of its agent and absolve 
Agent from any blame or merit else ? 
Not so. 1 hold that certainly one faith, 
To be sure, one self-ideal of a life 
Guides each his action, nor can be escaped 
By any subterfuge : evasions even 
Serving but subtlier, more pervasively 
So to develop and define the law 
(Covering all exceptions utterly) 
Of being and one's ultimate self-world. 
Yet is such over-soul, transcendent union 
No dogma of some still-persistent end. 
No rule of specialist activity, 
But such immanent unity as through 
The multiple, mutable particular rules 
203 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Finds itself, is tlieir universal self, 
Intrinsic unity : nowise prejudiced 
Hypothesis, persistent disregard 
For new experience ; but just the ground 
Of all experience, of new as old : 
And else were no instant self-certainty. 
So much for self-consistency. I claim 
That policy a perfidy toward self, 
Denial of the self-organic growth 
In freedom by necessity of point 
To point link'd mutual in evolving life, 
That policy the true self-perfidy 
Which posits truth on strange authorization 
And formal self-conviction once for all 
Immutable. The self-consistency 
(Monism of universal variance) 
Has vital basis ; scarce excuses vain 
Self-segregation from assimilance. 
Whence remains question, to be tried and proved 
In this my narrative for all the world : 
Whether or no (sanely and quietly, ay, 
As tranquil now) in so condemning me 
Regard to any innocence or guilt 
By way of evidence was properly 
204 



DREYFUS 

Admitted ; whether or no prejudgment of 

The cause precluded right or wrong throughout — 

Inquiry calling for unprejudiced 

Sifting of intricate procedure, which 

Examination of each act by act 

So far as 1 be not in ignorance 

Unfairly, misinform 'd of real events 

Whose true report was due my perilment, 

Shall be my narrative through patient years 

Here 'mid these walls. But need not hinder now. 

Secondly, of the systems which in the world 
Most stand for sheer prejudgment, disregard 
Of individual initiative, 
Persistence in one abstract policy, 
Represent, are expression of a pure 
Obliviousness to actuality 
Of self-conviction ; which require the most 
Self-perfidy by policy pursued 
Rigidly exoteric in the rule 
Laid down by strange authority, 1 claim 
The militar bureaucracy, their system 
Of outworn mediaeval ordering 
Stands worst and most outrageous. Can the man 
205 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Commission 'd and authoritative, else 
Outrank'd, owning allegiance, be excused 
From charge of selling birthright, soul and all ? 
Conceive the underling, the slave who stands 
For puppet, prisoner of superior 
Official and commission 'd overlord ; 
Drill'd, train'd by sheer reiteration to 
Come, go at bidding ; kill if need be ; scarce 
Of independence and intelligence 
To breathe by self -direction : in so far 
As man may utterly renounce his worth 
Absolved from all responsibility, 
All moral fibre ; made a mere machine, 
Automaton : best soldier, the worst man. 
Nor that there are in the world men who, save slaved, 
Were wild, obstreperous, dangerous to their kind 
(Deserving dungeon as I merit none) 
Makes medal'd orderly nor cow'd poltroon 
Better than galley-slave : who first renounce 
(For lust of crime or lust of pay, what care ?) 
All further rights of new experience, 
All possibility to profit by 
New stimulus toward new intelligence ; to 
Evolve as individual, universed 

206 



DREYFUS 

Man-of-a-world and actual entity. 
Nay, that the stultification somewhat fails 
Of innermost completeness but implies 
Impossibility of mechanism : 
Reflects no credit on the scheme which fails. 
Courage with ready, reason 'd action comes 
Scarce of the soldier-element : remains 
Residuum of the man not quite crush'd out. 
And for the overlord, commissioner 
In so far as not underling the same 
To some outranking in authority, 
'T would seem at first sight as though most of man 
Remain'd uncrush'd, just by the exercise 
Of uttermost authority self-will 'd. 
Yet in the superposed authority 
Regardless of all self-initiative 
(Save brainless flesh-instinctive ritual) 
In the rank and file, springs real self-perfidy 
Subtler, so more pernicious, worse abhorr'd 
Than sheer automatism. For such will 
Were merely will, sheerly the emptiness 
Of indeterminate and self-estranged 
Prejudgment. Every item for such law — 
Pure overposited by fiatism, 
207 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Purely a puppet, of generic type 
An instance merely and no fact at all 
To be accounted with and reconciled — 
Lacks world-reality, stands sheerly for 
The overlord's subjectivism (these stones' 
Regard lessness of innocence) no live 
Ideal actuality, no truth. 
Whence are all actions of such governance 
(Wanting reality of govern 'd selves) 
Actions to no end of self-actual world, 
No whole self-realization ; but denial 
Of self's reality, self-governance. 
Whence the commander, despot rigidly 
By preconceived, so unadjustable 
And inorganic fiat, worst of all men 
Forswears the self-world-organism, is most 
Incapable, in all that touches him 
As soldier, of an actual manliness ; 
Most like machine when most authoritative, 
Most judgmentless (most like these worldless walls) 
When dooming most, when most court-martial judge. 
And that some humanhood remains to these 
By failure of the system quite to quench 
Mutual regard for men's reality 
208 



DREYFUS 

Of independent soul-initiative 

Shall scarce excuse the system which still fails. 

Whence am I righteously (no blame of theirs) 
Doom'd as by plenum of accomplish'd fate 
To destiny, deplorable enough, 
Deserved of any man who earnestly 
And faithfully as may be serves, supports 
The military system ; who at last 
By very innocence of all offense 
Charged in indictment 'gainst the monstrous scheme, 
By very militar trustworthiness 
(As I an officer was trustworthy 
As stones and chains are somewhat trustworthy) 
Realizes self best by this judgmentless 
Oblivion of responsibility 
For right nor wrong. I had the less deserved 
This desolateness had my manhood less 
Been soldierly. — I, realizing at last 
Soul's absolute self-responsibility, 
Prologuize narrative (of soul's worst wrong 
Men e'er committed) with confession full ; 
In so far as I served and did command 
Trustworthily am I deservingly 
209 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Victim of mine old mediseval zeal, 

My monkish segregation self from world 

Imposing an imposed authority 

As martinet, disciplinary chief 

To the death. Confess, mine innocence of all 

Charges preferr'd against me for worst crime 

Imputable : and shall in all I say 

Damning their disregard for right nor wrong 

Damn by each jot and tittle of my proof 

Of innocence myself to living death. 

This desolate existence : righteously. 

So in the narrative I rise beyond 

The degradation, realize utterly — 

Since that first bitterness of mad turmoil 

Transfiguring, regenerating all — 

Absolute freedom of contemplating 

The terms of this my life-imprisonment : 

Teaching the world (save in their zeal the guards - 

That one last loss which scarce will leave me sane ! 

Obliterate this written testimony!) 

Men's horrible denial, vital void; 

This manlessness which is their martial law ! 



2IO 



TESLA 

A LIFE-TIME vow'd to service of mankind ! 

Here 'mid these marvel-working manifold 

Automata, built of my brain and strength. 

To labor to increase man's energy! 

Ay, not to human weal alone, but all 

Earth's is the service dedicate; for, though 

Human activity must needs exploit 

Subhuman, subhumanity none less 

Gains as the world at large by every new 

Economy of practice : energy 

Of all earth more effective by each least 

Subtler adjustment of the mechanism. 

All earth a mechanism, whatsoe'er 

Axes or fulcra ; molecules or minds 

Alike one reservoir of fluid force 

Unstable, by whose instability 

Is mankind measurable. I, a man, 

But an automaton of vital force 

Directing by mine energy supreme 

Of subtlest-sure adjustments world's work all 

Through the self-dedication. In despite 

Of self-supposed originality, 

211 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Illusive independence; just because 
Of mechanism-leadership, most subtly 
A full-felt world-dependence; am I most 
Machine, axis and fulcrum in this world ! 

Is this thing so ? Am I this world-machine ? — 

Yea, for these many years I 've swiftly work'd 

Of this one guide and standard to my strength : 

The more machine-like, so ideally 

The more myself; the more this heart and brain 

Conceive and execute automata. 

The more myself realizes for the world 

A genuine worldship. Such the mass; and such 

The swiftness, such the motion : wherefore such 

The mundane energy ! Thus have I wrought. 

Thus-wise believing. And, by work's success 

Even in its sort, proved my philosophy 

Of practical purport and sufficient thus 

To truth. So have 1 held; and still hold so. 

Yet though in this present pause from labor's stress, 

In this unprecedented need to weigh 

Well the world-worth of this my way of life. 

Springs an enthusiasm, yea, a zeal 

For just such course as hitherto pursued; 

212 



TESLA 

Yet in excess of zeal justly demands, 
Ay, strangely preconceives, prejudges, ay. 
An ultimate criticism, evaluation 
Of my belief's foundations. Face to face 
Start forth enthusiasm, soul-profound. 
Soul-overwhelming ; ay, and to its face 
A sudden void of all which had seem'd proof, 
A sudden need to prove anew a scheme 
Wherein enthusiasm, valuing, 
Self-judgment, criticism, have their place 
For all-important. — Can the mere machine 
Be less mechanic for a blank despair ? 
Have or despair or faith a meaning through 
Automata ? And yet faith and despair 
Are fundamental. I am fill'd with faith. 
Faith which but by supreme self-confidence 
Demands establishment. In that despair 
Which was mine for the fiery element 
(Resuming locally an outlived past 
Insensate of nebular immanence ?) 
Which in an hour did lay waste all my work 
Of decades ; in that sudden-sprung dismay 
(At loss of cosmic process and contact 
Too retrograde with force unf rigerate ? ) 
213 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Was nought of energy, no moving force, 
No force-moved mass : the dedication, ceased ; 
Stopp'd, the world-service. This automaton, 
Call'd work, quite disestablish 'd ; man or mind, 
Axis or fulcrum shatter'd ; in despite 
Of universal energy (that keen 
Condition of the first mass-birth) despair 
Immeasurable and immitigable 
Of this one personal estimate did end 
The mechanism. In that hour I sat 
Of a smoking, ashen, soul-denuded world ; 
Which by the very world-essential soul 
Of me (my blank despair) proved so no world. 
Now is the world of this self-dedicate 
Enthusiasm reestablish 'd ; yea. 
Scarce by dependence upon heat or cold ; 
Not by an automatic world-device 
Of mechanism ; but by world-design, 
New zeal inrushing over all the void : 
World rehabilitate by virtue of 
This personal estimate new-vitalized. 
Can such a world whose being so depends 
On faith, non-being on a mere despair, 
Be mechanism ? Can the self be given 
214 



TESLA 

Wholly to mankind's service, nor thereby 

But subtlier, richlier serve this personal sense 

Of value, paramount and lord of all ? 

Ha ! What my mere machines (analogous 

With men's souls, but not thereby men !) must needs 

Lack, is this manufacturing soul-self ; 

Which not alone mechanically makes. 

But knows : * I make ; and, knowing so, transcend 

'All mechanism '. Ha ! and this my soul 
(Analogous with such automata, 
But not thereby mechanic) actualizes 
Self, both, and world-mechanics by best being 
Not a world-dedication, but a stuff 
Which knows : ' I dedicate and by this sense 

'Alone am world-devoted '. So shall zeal 
Establish zeal ; insistently maintain 
Mechanics which alone were mechanism 
By fundamental faith. Else were despair 
Indifferent ; world indifferent, work or nought. 
Else were the fiery destruction, no 
Undoing ; nor the work evaluable. 
Else were world-service utterly inane. 

So, to the reconstruction. Whilst I work 

215 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Still at the old mechanics, to conceive 
World for a self-world, so conceive the scheme 
Of service as to show the work in sooth 
Auto-energic : ay, no longer but 
Postponement of world's sheer devitalizing. 
For I have dream'd and taught that all my work 
Aim'd at postponement of the inevitable 
Infrigeration ; sought economy 
Merely of dissipation with a view 
To eking-out what energy remains 
From the more wasteful methods. I have sought 
Decrease destruction in opposing war 
With war's mechanics push'd to limit of 
Conceivable effectiveness ; thereby 
With horror of catastrophe to cow 
The blustering militance. This have I done 
Toward mass-economy, postponing time 
Of final destitution. I have sought 
By chemic subtlety to fertilize 
Barrenness to a cropping, that mankind 
At far less waste than of his flocks and herds 
Might live by bread unto remoter years : 
Postponing sure starvation. I have sought 
Far beyond all else so to utilize 
216 



TESLA 

Sun's energy remaining best by forcing 
Electric instability, to use 
Earth for one vast elastic reservoir 
Of fluid potency ; by setting up 
Local disturbances at least expense, 
To energize with practical potency 
For warmth, food, shelter, vitality or strength 
As needed every molecule of earth 
Without molecular destruction : yet 
Admitting how inevitably must 
Practical worth of molecules (if not 
By deepest definition matter's self ?) 
In the wellnigh interminable course 
Of dissipation thus electrically 
Set up, be slowly, fatally none less 
Exhausted. For, howe'er device may aim 
Toward fostering inequilibrium 
Of potencies, must every transformation 
To energy mechanical set up 
A kinematic equilibrium ; 
In so far irretrievably exhaust 
The potency. Thus in a sort my work 
Has seem'd a self-defeat ; a weak attempt 
(However by comparison immense) 
217 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Toward mere postponement of an evil day 

Inevitable ; and an end of life, 

Nowise disbarr'd. And in mechanic scheme 

Must whatsoe'er economy but be 

Relative to preceding waste ; none less 

Modicum of exhaustion, dissipation 

Proceeding still, if temporarily 

New wealth yet unexploited open up 

Delusive vista ; or if, for direct 

Acknowledgment of waning, earlier wants 

Be strictly curtail'd. Such has been my work 

Acknowledging a self-defeat, devoting 

Self to a general and still foredoom 'd 

Lost cause, forlorn hope without source of hope. 

Such were a mere mechanics self-destroy 'd. 

Now but the mechanism proves to need 
A self-establisher ; and equally 
Possesses such. World-work is self-sustain'd. 
Devotion is of zeal and faith ; the self 
Ever more richly realized in the work 
World-dedicate ; and nowise in such work 
Susceptible to any self-defeat. 
What of this world, which, being world of self, 
218 



TESLA 

Mechanics auto-vital, self-sustain *d, 
Cannot, whatso the dedication, still 
In dedication suffer self-defeat ? 
What of a world of faith, self-consciously 
A work and an evaluing of work ? 
Were my works wrong ? Were there no value in 
Civilization, ever earning more 
By less comparative of waste ? Or were 
Such effort valuable, reason -right, 
Definable in any terms at all. 
Just because over and above the work 
Is valuation : consciousness and faith ? 
Man cannot live by bread alone ; man's wars 
Shall cease but for disgust — at worst, dismay — 
Which enginery (putting-aside from self 
Destructiveness) may mean : not enginery 
(Pride in a pompous, loud ingeniousness) 
Be war's cessation ; and 't were zeal for work 
In work's enlarged horizon which my skill 
Shall kindle : not the work-fact, but the joy 
In estimated process skill-sustain'd. 
Such were solution. I deny no whit 
The perfect-proved mechanical dismay 
Which fronts us ; from the first every least act — • 
219 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Defined mechanicwise for physical 

Equilibration of some potency — 

Has been and still shall be self-dissipant, 

Doom'd to destruction, still degenerating 

Despite all ingenuity ; and so 

Unthinkable for any world of faith, 

Enthusiasm or intelligence 

Of workmanship. So from the first has been 

Evaluation ; which through every stroke 

Of mass-in-motion more and more intends 

Purposive adaptation ; more and more 

Posits economy, by utterly 

Forswearing standard of economism 

For fundamental. Every motion-mass, 

Factors of energy, were such but by 

The estimation : 'I am mass and move '. 

Every dissemination, every fall 

Of energy toward equilibrium 

(In the cooling process of the fiery scheme) 

Stands register'd eternally, by more 

And more recomplication through and through 

The evaluation ; which, by every move 

And loss mechanic, waxes in design'd 

Enthusiasm, in the psychic strength 

220 



TESLA 

Of comprehension, organized, concrete 

Self-adaptation, self-devotion through 

Richlier a world of process, of a growth 

Equal to regress ; yet by nature of 

Growth by contrast with physical decay, 

Infinitely, ay, qualitative-wise 

Supremely of importance. Through and through 

Is world a scheme of matter-motived loss : 

Parallel'd, ay, in sure polarity 

Of meaning, by its equal counterpart, 

The psychic increase : as psychology 

Means growth ; so physics, dissipance ; and both. 

One static process. As all energy, 

Or wastefully, or by my subtlest scheme 

Economized, must dissipate (the mass 

Call'd man, move as a mass with less each hour 

Of physic-energy in flesh and brain) 

So must the zeal (if mass be possible 

Even for its own defeat) of comprehension, 

Enthusiastic teleology 

Of ordering estimate evalue more 

And more unendingly. My whole work looks 

Ever toward richlier comprehending world 

In self ; toward organism (fleshly still 

221 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

If fleshly less preponderant) which shall be 

As far beyond our present human frame 

As man excels the nuclear molecule 

Of star-stuff. As my world-intelligence 

Sprung from the nebula ; so springs, in just 

The same continuous frige ration, some 

More-than-man and some more-than-heat to hold 

System eternally : some less-than-heat 

With heat's evanishment indifferently 

To life's perpetuance. 1 in my purge 

By fiery holocaust, I in my sense 

Of world-habilitation totally 

Conclude an universe ; as molecule 

Of nebula concluded, still concludes 

Only less man-significantly such 

Eternal worldship. Every organism 

Chemic or supra-physiologic each 

Is perpetuity. Mine energy 

Of world is inexhausting, being a faith. — 

What possibility of after-life ? 

What meaning to expected end of all ? 

What worth to cyclic rhythm, counterpoise 

And energy exhausted ? These were mere 

Partial interpretation of work done 

222 



TESLA 

And so defined as ended, still foredoom 'd ! 
The worker were not done, still less foredoom'd 
Who is criterion of continuance ! 
What else were spirit than this zeal to work 
A self-salvation by my made machines 
Serving in sort my human world ? And yet 
More than this manifold and marvel-seeming 
Mechanic ingenuity were this : 

* I make : and know ; and cannot foil my faith 

* Which were criterion even of despair ; 

* Eternity and continuity 

' Even of the fiery purge, ashen defeat '. 
So have I sought and found automaton ; 
Auto-establisher through every stroke 
Of world-dependent, man-devoted zeal. 
Only by mass-transcendence might I mean 
Mass, motion, energy : and I am these : 
Original, creative, absolute 
As any other among all mankind ! — 

Nay, 't were insane ! Were not the fiery fact 
Lord of despair, master of this machine, 
Irrevocably proved, by mockery 
Of mine illusive insight, from the first 
223 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Creator and created ? Such defeat, 
As by too great success at calling back 
The obsolete incandescence, proves the world 
Unmeaning mass ; my faith or my despair 
Product — and only thereby factor too — 
In the world-energy. 1 feel and will 
(With far less vital zeal) but as a flame 
Devours : and ashens with its food's surcease. 



224 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



MAY 16 1908 



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